“Pomes Penyeach” – Initial Reception

The score(s) next to each publication’s review and the average rating is an interpretation of the reviews by Literature’s Pretty Long History.

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The Saturday Review Of Literature

November 10, 1928

Full Review

“The flow of Miss West’s critical observations is agreeably diversified by her retrospections, descriptions, and perceptions of Paris as she walks down the Rue de Rivoli after visiting her dressmaker and lawyer and buying a copy of “Pomes Penyeach” at Sylvia Beach’s workshop.”

Edward William Garnett

Victoria Daily Times

September 22, 1928

Full Review

“The day began with a purchase, in the street that “leads from the Odeon to the Boulevard Saint Germain,” of “Pomes Penyeach,” by James Joyce.”

Anonymous

The Times Literary Supplement

August 2, 1928

Full Review

“This little volume she had just bought was entitled “Pomes Penyeach,” its author being Mr. James Joyce, with whose “majestic genius” her inquiry really begins.”

Richard Denis Charques

The Dublin Magazine

July 1928

Full Review

“The collection is small the poems are as brief as poems may well be, but they all stay in the memory.”

Padraic Colum

The Times Literary Supplement

November 10, 1927

Full Review

“This occasional poetry lives always upon the hights, and if had not to express the most elevated emotions it would not be written at all. Any other but such high and turbulent emotions Mr Joyce would probably have expressed in his prose writings.”

Alan Francis Clutton-Brock

The New Republic

October 26, 1927

Full Review

“There is not much of it, but it is real poetry—perhaps some of the purest of our time—and a single strain of its music is enough to strike dumb whole volumes which we may previously have pretended to take seriously.”

E. W.

Les Nouvelles Littéraires

October 15, 1927

Full Review

“C’est sous le signe de Shakespeare and Co. qu’est né le culte joycien, car c’est un véritable culte, ardent, exclusif, non sans fanatisme, qui réunit maintenant dans une fraternité spirituelle amis, proches ou lointains, du grand écrivain irlandais. De cette boutique si délicieusement accueillante, qui pourrait, paraphrasant sa voisine, s’appeler la Maison des Amis des livres anglais, sont partis ce brûlot violent, admirable, obscur, éclatant, Ulysses, et plus récemment un tout petit volume de poèmes, vêtu d’un vert délicat, Pomes Penyeach.”

Marcel Brion

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The Nation

October 12, 1927

Full Review

“It is to be suspected that this tiny booklet is a cleaning-up of unconsidered trifles, that it marks the end of Joyce’s appearance as a poet, that his poetry hereafter will be found (as most of it has been found in the past) imbedded in his prose.”

Anonymous

The Hound And Horn

September 1927

Full Review

“Mr. Joyce’s latest book is a little collection of thirteen poems, written between 1904 and 1924. It would be ungrateful to question the necessity of publishing these “Pomes,” because everything connected with his name is usually of the first interest. However, the present selection, pleasant enough to be sure, is scarcely worth the shilling — except as a bibliographical curiosity.”

Anonymous

The Saturday Review Of Literature

July 30, 1927

Full Review

“Its title is “Pomes Penyeach,” which you can easily translate.”

Anonymous

The Daily Herald

July 14, 1927

Full Review

“There are thirteen of these poems. At a penny each, they are good baker a value for a shilling.”

George Slocombe

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