James Joyce's Literary Executor
This month's New Yorker has a fascinating article by D. T. Max (available online here) devoted to the subject of James Joyce's grandson, Stephen Joyce. Stephen Joyce controls his grandfather's literary estate, and has angered many academics with his aggressiveness on copyright issues. The article is rather lengthy, but it's extremely interesting, and does a pretty good job of presenting both sides of the issue. It also talks a good deal about the present state of copyright law, and about other "difficult" literary executors. Of course, as the article points out,...
Most prickly literary estates are interested in suppressing unflattering or intrusive information, but no one combines tolltaker, brand enforcer, and arbiter of taste as relentlessly as Stephen [Joyce] does, and certainly not in such a personal way.
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