Alexis Léon (1925-2018) was born in Paris, the son of refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. He was one of the last living members of James Joyce’s Paris circle in the author’s final decade.Anna Maria Léon married Alexis Léon in Paris in 1979 and they were happy together for forty-three years. She encouraged this project from the start and ensured that this book would be published as a fitting tribute to her late husband and his family. Luca Crispi is Associate Professor of James Joyce Studies and Modernism in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, Ireland. He co-curated the ‘Ulysses’ at the National Library exhibition in 2004–5, where he first met the Léons. He has worked with Joyce’s archives in various collections around the world for over twenty years. He is the author of Joyce’s Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in ‘Ulysses’: Becoming the Blooms (Oxford University Press 2015) and is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Ulysses and Shakespeare and Company.

Extraordinary and memorable.

• IllustrationsContributors PrefaceAnna Maria LéonAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. ContextsLuca Crispi2. James Joyce and Paul L. Léon: The Story of a Friendship Lucie Noel3. The Story of the Publication of The Story of a Friendship Luca Crispi4 On James Joyce Paul L. Léon5 Paul Léon’s ‘Letters from Hell’ Transcribed, translated and annotated by Mary Gallagher6 ‘Living Memories of James Joyce: Fifty Years On’: A Lecture atthe James Joyce Society Alexis LéonSelect BibliographyIndex

Alexis Léon (1925-2018) was born in Paris, the son of refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. He was one of the last living members of James Joyce’s Paris circle in the author’s final decade.Anna Maria Léon married Alexis Léon in Paris in 1979 and they were happy together for forty-three years. She encouraged this project from the start and ensured that this book would be published as a fitting tribute to her late husband and his family. Luca Crispi is Associate Professor of James Joyce Studies and Modernism in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, Ireland. He co-curated the ‘Ulysses’ at the National Library exhibition in 2004–5, where he first met the Léons. He has worked with Joyce’s archives in various collections around the world for over twenty years. He is the author of Joyce’s Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in ‘Ulysses’: Becoming the Blooms (Oxford University Press 2015) and is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Ulysses and Shakespeare and Company.

Extraordinary and memorable.

• IllustrationsContributors PrefaceAnna Maria LéonAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. ContextsLuca Crispi2. James Joyce and Paul L. Léon: The Story of a Friendship Lucie Noel3. The Story of the Publication of The Story of a Friendship Luca Crispi4 On James Joyce Paul L. Léon5 Paul Léon’s ‘Letters from Hell’ Transcribed, translated and annotated by Mary Gallagher6 ‘Living Memories of James Joyce: Fifty Years On’: A Lecture atthe James Joyce Society Alexis LéonSelect BibliographyIndex

Alexis Léon (1925-2018) was born in Paris, the son of refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. He was one of the last living members of James Joyce’s Paris circle in the author’s final decade.Anna Maria Léon married Alexis Léon in Paris in 1979 and they were happy together for forty-three years. She encouraged this project from the start and ensured that this book would be published as a fitting tribute to her late husband and his family. Luca Crispi is Associate Professor of James Joyce Studies and Modernism in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, Ireland. He co-curated the ‘Ulysses’ at the National Library exhibition in 2004–5, where he first met the Léons. He has worked with Joyce’s archives in various collections around the world for over twenty years. He is the author of Joyce’s Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in ‘Ulysses’: Becoming the Blooms (Oxford University Press 2015) and is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Ulysses and Shakespeare and Company.

Extraordinary and memorable.

• IllustrationsContributors PrefaceAnna Maria LéonAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. ContextsLuca Crispi2. James Joyce and Paul L. Léon: The Story of a Friendship Lucie Noel3. The Story of the Publication of The Story of a Friendship Luca Crispi4 On James Joyce Paul L. Léon5 Paul Léon’s ‘Letters from Hell’ Transcribed, translated and annotated by Mary Gallagher6 ‘Living Memories of James Joyce: Fifty Years On’: A Lecture atthe James Joyce Society Alexis LéonSelect BibliographyIndex