


Lucia Joyce illuminated A Chaucer's A.B.C.
"The late Lucia Joyce, daughter of my granduncle, James Joyce, was a very talented artist and dancer. She was also deemed, at the time, to be schizophrenic. Her father sought to have her talents noted for posterity. Lucia had beautifully illuminated the letters of the English alphabet and her father matched it with a religious poem, the stanzas of which began with consecutive letters of that alphabet. The poem, originally written during the early part of the 2nd Christian millennium by a French monk, Guillaume de Guillaume, was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was translated into old English by none other than Geoffrey Chaucer. The book, without cover, came into my possession through my father."
Submitted by: Philip Joyce