The Cat and the Devil | James Joyce | Little Island Books 2021
James Joyce, with illustrations by Lelis
The Cat and the Devil
Little Island, 2021 (illustrations 2012)
Hardback, 32 pages
ISBN: 9781912417919
Joyce’s grandson Stephen remembered that as a child he knew ‘Nonno’ was a famous writer whowrote complex and difficult books. Even so his Nonno found time, when Stevie was little, to sit with him and tell him stories in a language any boy or girl could understand. Many of Joyce’s friends recollected how Stevie crawled onto his grandfather’s lap and asked persistent questions which Joyce answered patiently in a Dublin drawl, offering increasingly fantastic replies.
Some of these ended up in correspondence. In August 1936, when Stevie was four, Joyce sent him a toy cat with sweets inside, smuggled under the noses of his parents. That inside joke, and a shared love of cats, led to The Cat and the Devil coming in a letter Joyce posted from Beaugency a few days after.
Based on a Beaugency folktale, The Cat and the Devil tells how a mayor makes a bargain with the
devil to have a much-needed bridge built overnight. The price is that whoever first steps across it
belongs to the devil—and the crafty mayor makes sure it’s a cat who crosses the bridge. Joyce added
humorous touches, such as depicting Beaugency’s mayor as Alfred Byrne, a famous Dublin politician
who was quite a character, and making jokes about the devil reading newspapers to find wicked
ideas and speaking French badly with a Dublin accent. Versions of the folktale, and countless
numbers of actual bridges attributed to the devil’s craftsmanship, exist in almost every European
country and as far away as the Caribbean, USA, and Argentina. Many of these folk tales and legends
are found in folklore anthologies and picture books in many languages.
But Joyce’s playful way with words make his version especially delightful, so that many countries
have published it. The latest edition, by Little Island, has wonderful illustrations by the Brazilian
illustrator Lelis (the book uses the images from an earlier publication in Portuguese from Brazil). Like
many other interpretations, the devil shares Joyce’s features.
A few weeks after Stevie received The Cat and the Devil, Joyce was in Copenhagen and sent his
grandson another letter with a story about cats. This eventually found its way into another children’s
picture book attributed to James Joyce, The Cats of Copenhagen—but that’s a story for another day.
Pat Ryan
James Joyce and Padraic Colum
James Joyce and Padraic Colum
A hundred years ago saw the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses. So what better time for IBBY Ireland to remind everyone that Joyce also produced two children’s stories in letters to his grandson Stephen James Joyce. Although written in private correspondence for fun and with affection, both narratives experiment with language and reflect his extraordinary writing style. One of these tales—The Cat and the Devil—has been published as picture books a number of times in different countries. Another, The Cats of Copenhagen, is mostly limited to academic studies. These are delightful stories, comparing well with works by James Stephens and Padraic Colum, contemporaries of Joyce who wrote literary fairy tales for children.
Padraic Colum was known in Ireland as a poet and dramatist, and Mary Colum, his wife, as a respected writer and critic. Both were friends with James and Nora Joyce, promoted Joyce’s work, cared for Lucia Joyce when she was ill, and assisted Joyce while he wrote Finnegans Wake. In America, however, Colum was known for his children’s books. To maintain his native tongue, he translated from Irish to English traditional tales heard in childhood, weaving them into a children’s novel, The King of Ireland’s Son (illustrated by Willy Pogany). More children’s folktale anthologies followed, with three awarded retrospective citations for the Newbery Honor. Colum’s essay, Story Telling: New & Old, a comparison of traditional storytelling with storytelling by public librarians, continues to influence storytellers today.
Dublin City University and Trinity College Dublin have a forthcoming exhibition on Padraic Colum’s life and work. Stay tuned for further information on this celebration of a writer who pioneered Irish folklore and myth as fantasy for children.