Stuart Gilbert was born October 25, 1883, at Chipping Ongar, Essex, to Arthur Stronge Gilbert, a retired army officer, and his wife Melvina Kundiher Singh. After graduation from Cheltenham and Hertford College, Oxford, Gilbert joined the Indian Civil Service in 1907. Following military service in the First World War he served as a judge on the Court of Assizes in Burma, retiring in 1924.
With a lifelong interest in literature and in French culture, Gilbert moved to Paris in 1925 and remained there with his French-born wife Moune (born Marie Agnès Mathilde Douin) the remainder of his life, save for an exile in Wales during the Second World War.
Soon after his arrival in Paris Gilbert met James Joyce and advised him on the translation of
In addition to his activities as a literary scholar and student of James Joyce, Gilbert Stuart had a major career as a literary translator, rendering into English the works of Saint-Exupéry, Malraux, Camus, Sartre, Simenon, Cocteau, and other contemporary French authors.
In the last decade of his long life Stuart Gilbert translated numerous texts for the art book publisher Albert Skira of Geneva. Gilbert died in his apartment at 7 rue Jean du Bellay on January 5, 1969.
The Stuart Gilbert papers embrace correspondence, diaries, notebooks, clippings, photographs, and other material created between 1900 and 1985 (bulk 1928-1975) documenting Gilbert's literary career, particularly his work with James Joyce and as a literary translator. Due to the dislocation brought about by World War II little of the collection apart from one diary and Joyce's correspondence to Gilbert date from before 1941. There is virtually no material in the collection on Gilbert's personal history and non-literary activities, apart from a curriculum vitae and a few official documents. The material had little apparent original order when it arrived at the Ransom Center; the arrangement employed here is largely an imposed one. The papers have been organized into three series: Series I. Stuart Gilbert, 1900-1969 (bulk 1940-1969) (15 boxes), Series II. Moune Gilbert, 1919-1985 (bulk 1941-1975) (1 box), and Series III. James Joyce, 1921-1973 (bulk 1928-1973) (2 boxes).
The first series reflects several aspects of Stuart Gilbert's life and professional activities. The materials have been divided into eight subseries: Subseries A. Correspondence, 1940-1969, Subseries B. Diaries, 1929-1967, Subseries C. Notebooks, 1928-1952, Subseries D. Works, 1900-1957, Subseries E. Translations, 1946-1960, Subseries F. Biographical materials, 1907-1969, Subseries G. Photographs and illustrations, 1925-1960, and Subseries H. Programs, 1920-1972.
The Correspondence subseries represents material essentially professional in character. The letters to Gilbert--and a significant number of his surviving carbons--give considerable insight into his relationships with writers and publishers. Significant correspondents include Sylvia Beach, Peter Du Sautoy, T.S. Eliot, Richard Ellmann, Desmond Harmsworth, Ben Huebsch, Patricia Hutchins, André Malraux, Roger Martin du Gard, and Harriet Weaver. Gilbert's correspondence with James Joyce is found in the Joyce Series.
Diaries kept by Gilbert between 1929 and 1934 and from 1941 to 1967 are present, as are notebooks and drafts of articles and longer works. The notebooks are about equally divided between those containing fairly systematic material on Joyce and his novels, particularly
The diary for the years 1929-34 (published by the Ransom Center in 1993 as
Stuart Gilbert's Works subseries includes numerous essays and articles in manuscript, typescript, or galleys, as well as a film script of
Drafts of Gilbert's translation projects are present only in fragments, apart from that of Valéry's
Series II comprises materials relating to Moune Gilbert's life as the spouse and sometime collaborator of Stuart Gilbert and as a homemaker. Her papers are arranged in three subseries: Subseries A. Correspondence, 1939-1985, Subseries B. Notebooks, 1920-1981, and Subseries C. Home Economics Materials, 1953-1968. Moune's correspondents were generally social acquaintances, and included James and Christiane Emmons, Milton and Laura Runyon, Narcissa S. King, and Anie Parent. The notebooks contain poems and excerpts from French authors, together with abstracts of various books. An undated interview (in typescript and with notations in Moune's hand) describes her husband's relationship with James Joyce. The home economics materials are largely clippings and other materials indicative of maintaining a home in Paris in the postwar period.
The third and final series illuminates James Joyce's relationship with one of his most trusted associates during the years
The correspondence subseries includes about seventy postcards and letters Joyce sent Gilbert between 1928 and 1940. These missives were generally brief, dealing with questions Gilbert asked of Joyce, Joyce's comments on his own writing, and otherwise simply keeping in touch. Joyce's letter of 11 June 1938 includes a short poem,
The major item in the Works subseries is the opening chapter of
The final subseries, Photographs and Artwork, embraces a significant number of photos of the Joyces, together with a number of pieces of Lucia Joyce's calligraphic art from the early 1930s.
Purchase, 1989
Open for research
Bob Taylor, 1998