Stanislaus Joyce

Who was Stanislaus Joyce?

Stanislaus Joyce was an Irish teacher, scholar, and writer who lived for many years in Italy. He was the brother of James Joyce. Considered a "whetstone" by his more famous brother, who shared his ideas and his books with him, Stanislaus was three years younger than James, and a constant boyhood companion. Stanislaus rebelled against his native Ireland as his brother had done, and in 1905, he joined James's household in Trieste on Via Caterina, 1.

He worked as an English-language teacher in the Berlitz School alongside his brother. In 1903, he had already begun to keep a diary that recorded his own thoughts on philosophical and literary matter as well as those of his brother; he later resumed this diary in Trieste. This "Book of Days", as he called it, sheds light on James Joyce's life between the years 1906 and 1909. The diary indicates that Stanislaus, truly "his brother's keeper", was called upon to rescue his brother from financial difficulties time and time again. After 1908, he maintained his own address, although he may have lived with his brother again for a time in 1909.

Arrested as an irredentist on December 28, 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he was interned by the Austrians at Katzenau, near Linz. After his release, he moved in with his sister Eileen's family. Stanislaus took his brother's teaching position at Trieste's Scuola Superiore di Commercio "Revoltella" in 1920; this school later became assimilated into the University of Trieste and he continued on as a non-tenured professor of English until his death. On August 13, 1928, Stanislaus married Nelly Lichtensteiger. They had one son —James— who was born in February 1943. Due to his anti-Fascist views, Stanislaus moved to Florence sometime in 1941, where he may have been protected from the Germans by various wealthy Italian and American families.