4pQonT

136 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
was then living in Trieste, and urged him to come and join the
party. On July 1, 1920, Joyce wrote to Carlo Linati, "My address
in Paris will be chez M. Ezra Pound, Hotel de l'Élysée, rue de
Beaune 9." 16
This move was an important step in establishing Joyce's reputation.
In Paris, he met many people who became fanciers of his
work, and the "Joyce cult" began to take shape. Sylvia Beach,
whose Shakespeare Head Book Shop was the meeting place for the
avant-garde, decided that Ulysses must be published in book form.
Since no publisher would touch it, she and her partner, Adrienne
Monnier, financed it and saw the book through arduous months of
preparation. A few years later, other Paris admirers published
Joyce's final work serially in transition.
One of the more important figures in the American expatriate
group in Paris was Robert McAlmon. His autobiography, Being
Geniuses Together (1938), is one of the best, and least-known,
books on the period. McAlmon, one of the ten children of a Kansas
minister who was hard-put to feed his brood, came to New York
after serving in the Army Air Corps during the First World War.
He became a model at Cooper Union Art School, in order to
finance his studies there. One of the students, Winifred Bryher,
fell in love with him, and they were married in February, 1921.
To his surprise, the marriage created a sensation in the press.
McAlmon discovered that his bride was really Winifred Ellerman,
only daughter of Sir John Ellerman, the richest shipowner in
England.
Sir John appears in Who's Who in England for the first time in
1905, as "proprietor of the Leyland Line of Steamers." The
Leyland Line had been built up by Francis Leyland, patron of
Whistler, and Ellerman had been his accountant. Now the Leyland
Line was again patronizing the arts. Although Sir John had little
inclination along those lines, as long as McAlmon was married to
his daughter, some of the Ellerman money went to help young
artists and writers. McAlmon commissioned some works from
Wyndham Lewis, and he brought out some avant-garde works
under the imprint of Contact Editions.
Winifred Bryher brought her handsome young man home to the
Ellerman establishment in London, but as soon as Sir John learned