The connection between Eliot and Joyce dates back to 1917 when Eliot became assistant editor of The Egoist, where he first read Ulysses. Their friendship and mutual admiration deepened over the years and Eliot, as an editor at Faber & Faber in the 1930’s, was instrumental in encouraging Joyce and getting Finnegans Wake into print.

A. In the top right corner is the first known letter between the two writers, dated 11 August 1920, in which Eliot says that "Ezra Pound has given me a package for you." Eliot asks Joyce to meet him while he is Paris. The famous encounter of Lewis, Eliot and Joyce has been recounted often and the content of the eminent "package" turned out to be, among other things, a pair of old brown shoes.

B. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, Eliot presented Joyce with a copy of The Waste Land (1922) and inscribed it:

For James Joyce | with | homage and | admiration | from T.S. Eliot

This is one of the almost five hundred items from Joyce’s personal Paris library that is now housed here.

C. This is one of the thirty letters from Eliot to Joyce recently cataloged in the Buffalo Collection. This one, on Faber & Faber letterhead, is dated 21 August 1936 and inquires about material to set up the type for what would become — over two years later —Finnegans Wake.

D. Also recently cataloged for the first time, this is a galley proof (printed on one side only) for transition no. 11. It is heavily revised in Joyce’s hand in ink and documents the first appearance of the diagram — labeled here "Fig. 1, bass" — that appears in the "geometry lesson" (Finnegans Wake, p. 293; also see cases 8 & 11).

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