A missing gent answering to the name of Bloom

£5 reward lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street, missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy), height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery.

In the “Ithaca” episode of Ulysses Bloom ponders many things. He wonders what form of “public advertisement” might flush him out if he became occulted or hidden from view, or – more simply – if he departed. The advertisement Joyce (or the advertising agent Bloom) provides in answer to this question is on the one hand fanciful in its construction, and yet on the other is locked firmly into reality. It begins in the style of thousands of “lost dog” advertisements common to the Dublin papers since the eighteenth century, and melds imperceptibly with a very real missing-person notice that appeared in the Dublin newspapers of May and June 1902.

The lost, stolen, or strayed dogs of Dublin

Joyce’s pseudo-advertisement poses as a traditional posting for a lost dog: a reward is offered, followed by the words “lost, stolen or strayed”. Then the advertisement offers a description of the dog and, typically, the name that the dog answers to, as well as further information which might lead to its discovery.

Lost-dog advertisements were for many years a staple of the Dublin small ad columns. Although the form was widely used elsewhere, Dubliners regarded their tradition as venerable – and perhaps unique. An article in the Irish Times of 19 March, 1932 (“Lost, stolen, or strayed. Dogs in Old Dublin”) recounts the history of the Dublin dog ad, referring “to the old Dublin newspaper advertisements for lost, stolen or strayed dogs”:

So far as I know, the oldest "lost dog" advertisement in any Dublin newspaper appeared in the Flying Post dated April 6th, 1702 [etc.].

Here is a typical small ad for a lost dog:¹

£2 REWARD. […]

LOST, Stolen, or Strayed, yesterday, a Greyhound Dog; answers to the name of "Sport", yellow colour, with white mark at back of neck like a T. Whoever will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the same, to M Fogarty, Harold’s Cross bridge, will be handsomely rewarded.

In the absence of better information, even this chance advert of 1868 might stand as a potential source for Joyce’s advertisement. The Irish Times, the Freeman’s Journal, and other newspapers regularly carried about five such advertisements on their front or second page each issue. Although the ads continued into the twentieth century, their popularity waned in the 1890s, explaining why the Irish Times article of 1932 can refer to them in a historical context.

Journalists frequently used the expression “lost, stolen or strayed” in human contexts – and particularly in the context of breach of promise or marital breakdown:²

The plaintiff felt this, and wrote asking the defendant if he was "lost, stolen, or strayed". (Loud laughter.) The defendant replied "No", and added in his note that he would never leave her.

And it was not unknown for postcards to play on the same theme of a man "lost, stolen or strayed", as this example from a postcard of around 1915 demonstrates:

Notesheets

The text of the “Ithaca3” notesheets, edited by Phillip Herring, provides Joyce’s first version of the advertisement:³

£5 reward, missing gent. aged about 40 height 5,8, full build, dark complexion. May have since grown a beard. Was dressed when last seen. Above will be paid for his discovery.

The notesheets date from 1921, and so if Joyce is transcribing (and perhaps adapting) his source, we might expect that the source too dates from 1921. However, adjacent extracts in the notesheets show that he was in fact transcribing text from Irish newspapers dating from the very early years of the twentieth century.⁴

The missing gentleman

Less frequently encountered in the newspapers than the lost-dog advertisement was the missing-person ad. These were sometimes tragic pleas in the face of a likely suicide, but at others notices posted through solicitors for information about a person wanted for commercial, matrimonial, or other reasons. On Thursday 8 May 1902 such a small ad appeared tucked away in the “Notices” column of small ads on the front page of the Freeman’s Journal. It is an early version of the ad Joyce saw:⁵

MISSING, Gentleman, aged 40, height about 5 feet 5 inches, slight build, fair complexion, rather long brown hair, heavy brown moustache, blue eyes; wore a grey tweed suit, soft black felt hat, black shoes, and light rainproof overcoat. Last seen in Dublin about 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon, the 2nd inst. A substantial reward will be given for information leading to discovery. Apply to 16 Molesworth street, Dublin.

It seems to be a genuine advertisement. The notice ran for almost a month in various forms and in several newspapers. It is not known whether the advertisement was successful in tracking down the missing gentleman. The contact address is that of a Dublin solicitors’ practice.

The following day the same advertisement was repeated in the paper, and it also appeared, in a rather more prominent place – at the head of the second column of the front page – in the Irish Times. The Irish Times ran the ad until 4 June 1902. The Freeman ran it over the same period, but surprisingly with a gap on 12-16 May.⁶

The form of the notice changed on several occasions. After about a week, on 13 May, the Irish Times version introduced a specific reward of £10. Perhaps some new information had been received, as the reference to “shoes” is changed to “boots”, the time of the last sighting (4 o’clock on the 2nd of the month) disappears, and the reward is offered not solely for the missing gentleman’s recovery, but also simply for information leading to a knowledge of the gentleman’s whereabouts. When the Freeman picked up the advertisement again on 17 May it included this new text, and highlights the reward in block capitals.

There were no significant changes until 30 May, almost a month after the advertisement first appeared, when the level of the reward was raised from £10 to £100, and the text finally reached the state in which Joyce read it (note the reference to the possibility that the missing gentleman may have grown a beard over the interval since his disappearance):

£100 REWARD.

MISSING, Gentleman, aged 40, height about 5 ft. 5 in., slight built, square shoulders, fair complexion, rather long brown hair, heavy light brown moustache (may now have grown a beard), blue eyes. He was dressed in a grey tweed suit, soft black felt hat, black boots, and light rainproof overcoat when last seen on Friday afternoon, the 2^nd inst., in Dublin. The above Reward will be paid for his discovery. Apply 16 Molesworth street.

The advertisement underwent one further minor change as May passed into June, when the date of the original sighting was updated from “2^nd inst.” to “2^nd June”, but apart from that there were no changes until publication ceased on 4 June.

Adapting the advertisement to Bloom

These, then, are four sequential versions of the notice. Firstly, the text printed in the Dublin newspapers been 31 May and 4 June 1902 (A), with highlighted text copied (and minimally adjusted) by Joyce in his notesheets:

£100 REWARD.

MISSING, Gentleman, aged 40, height about 5 ft. 5 in., slight built, square shoulders, fair complexion, rather long brown hair, heavy light brown moustache (may now have grown a beard), blue eyes. He was dressed in a grey tweed suit, soft black felt hat, black boots, and light rainproof overcoat when last seen on Friday afternoon, the 2^nd inst., in Dublin. The above Reward will be paid for his discovery. Apply 16 Molesworth street.

Secondly, the resultant version found in Joyce’s Ithaca3 notesheets (1921):

£5 reward, missing gent. aged about 40 height 5,8, full build, dark complexion. May have since grown a beard. Was dressed when last seen. Above will be paid for his discovery.

It can easily be seen why Joyce made changes for version B:

A: £100 REWARD

B: £5 reward

The newspaper reward had previously been £10, and Joyce’s valuation of Bloom is moderate rather than excessive.

A: “MISSING, Gentleman”

B: “missing gent.”

Joyce’s syntax differs from the original, as the absence of the comma renders “missing” better interpreted as an adjective; “gentleman” is abbreviated with a full stop. NB the Freeman’s Journal separates “MISSING, Gentleman” with a dash rather than a comma, and so this is less likely to be Joyce’s immediate source.

A: “aged 40”

B: “aged about 40”

Joyce notes that Bloom was 38, or “above 40” in 1904 (U 17.464)

A: “height about 5 ft. 5 in.”

B: “height 5,8”

Joyce stated in Ulysses that Bloom’s height was “five feet nine inches and a half” (U 17.87). At the time of the notesheet he cannot have decided on this height, but knows that he will be taller than 5 ft. 5 in. When he recreates the advert with Bloom in mind he therefore needs to increase the height and to introduce “about”.

A: “slight build”

B: “full build”

Bloom weighs eleven stone and four pounds (U 17.91), and so would not be described as of slight build.

A: “fair complexion”

B: “dark complexion”

This second version (B) can now be compared with the text found in interim versions of Ulysses (C):

Version B (Joyce’s notesheets):

£5 reward, missing gent. aged about 40 height 5,8, full build, dark complexion. May have since grown a beard. Was dressed when last seen. Above will be paid for his discovery

Version C/D (pre-Rosenbach proto-draft and Rosenbach MS of Ulysses):

£5 reward, missing gent age about forty, height 5ft 9½ inches (cf. M B), full build, dark complexion, may have since grown a beard. When last seen was dressed in black. Above will be paid for information leading to his discovery. [C]

£5 reward, missing gent about 40, height 5 ft 8½ inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery. [D]

The main changes in these versions are that Joyce changes “gent.” to “gent” (arguably a different word rather than a punctuated shortening). Bloom’s height changes to 5ft 9½ inches (as in Ulysses) and then back to 5ft 8½ inches, and Joyce changes Bloom’s complexion from “dark” to “olive” (i.e. yellowish-brown). Although his notesheet extract omits the original newspaper comment that the missing gentleman was wearing a “grey tweed suit”, the Rosenbach MS reveals that Bloom was wearing a “black suit” (for the funeral he has just attended). Also reintroduced is the passage that a reward will be paid for “information leading to” Bloom’s discovery. This phrase did appear in the original advertisement, several weeks before the version Joyce saw – so it may just be a coincidence that Joyce happened to add back the same (conventional) wording.

This is the published version of the passage in the Ithaca episode of Ulysses (E):

£5 reward lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street, missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy), height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery.

By the time of this final version Bloom has grown another inch, but most spectacularly we see the whole missing-person notice placed within the context of a lost-dog advertisement, as the path of Bloom’s further humiliation gradually reaches its culmination.

Conclusion

In summary, it is possible to trace the emergence of this section of Ulysses text quite closely. The traditional lost-dog notices of the Dublin newspapers of Joyce’s youth were formulaic, and easily merged with the later, more exceptional, missing-person notice which Joyce saw (presumably) in a copy of the Irish Times dating from late May or early June 1902. The changes made over the four versions show Joyce’s description of Bloom changing subtlely as he approaches the completion of Ulysses.

John Simpson

revised February 2016

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