The Sandycove Atlas

The map that James Joyce borrowed?

12 Blotted address

The Marks

At the very end of the Sandycove Atlas, on the right-hand endpaper, there is a blotted address. Such defacements were common in the days before widespread telephone access, when postal services still reigned supreme.

The Texts

Hades

  • Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I know his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

  • Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the soprano. She’s his wife.
  • O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for some time. She was a fine looking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown. And a good armful she was.

He looked behind through the others.

  • What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationeryline? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

  • Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely’s. A traveller for blottingpaper.

Sirens
He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper. Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:

Miss Martha Clifford

c/o P. O.

Dolphin’s Barn Lane

Dublin.

Blot over the other so he can’t read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit.

Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U.P: up.

Discussion

Many people must have handled the Atlas before Joyce took possession of it, or after he returned it. Almost any of them could have used it as a blotter.

So far, the address has defied interpretation, and the number 41 remains the only clear item visible on the reverse image. It could be recognised by systematic analysis but there is no strong reason why it should show a particular connection with Joyce.

On the other hand, this careless mark could have suggested a suitable profession for Bloom and inspired him ‘blotting quick on pad of Pat’.