Stephen Joyce, grandson and last surviving direct descendant of James Joyce "and the formidably rigid gatekeeper" of the author's coveted literary estate, died January 23, the New York Times reported. He was 87. Confirming the death in a statement, Ireland's President Michael D. Higgins said Joyce had been "deeply committed to what he saw was the special duty to defend the legacy of the Joyce family in literary and personal terms," though it was "not a task carried out in harmonious circumstances at all times."
Noting that he "gleefully maintained an iron grip on his grandfather's printed works, unpublished manuscripts, letters and other material," the Times wrote that "his hold loosened somewhat on the 70th anniversary of James Joyce's death, when most copyrights on his masterpieces like Ulysses and Finnegans Wake expired. He said he was safeguarding the material's literary integrity and defending them from critics and biographers, whom he likened to 'rats and lice' that 'should be exterminated.' "
"I am not only protecting and preserving the purity of my grandfather's work, but also what remains of the much abused privacy of the Joyce family," he told the New Yorker in 2006.
Now that the material controlled by Stephen Joyce is part of his estate and its future uncertain, "the most likely immediate impact of his grandson's death will be the freeing of aggrieved scholars to ventilate, without fear of retribution, about how Mr. Joyce had thwarted their research for decades."
"I think now there will be more open reflection on the role Stephen Joyce played in impeding so many projects," said Anne Fogarty, director of the James Joyce Research Center at University College Dublin. "He saw himself as gatekeeper, but was very often quite obstructive."