Henry Blackwood Price

Deasy's letter mentions a "Mr Henry Blackwood Price" in connection with foot-and-mouth disease. Soon after Stephen reads this detail in the letter, Deasy explains its significance to him: "My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer to come over here." Joyce got Deasy's interest in the health of cattle not from Francis Irwin, but from an Irishman whom he met in Italy, and apparently liked—a man named Henry Blackwood Price. Moreover, when Deasy, acting on behalf of his cousin of that name, writes a letter about the disease to Irish newspapers he is playing a role that Joyce, acting on behalf of his friend of that name, himself performed. The novel also includes an MP named "William Field" whom the real Blackwood Price, with Joyce's help, contacted for assistance in the matter.

John Hunt 2016

Statue of James Joyce in Trieste. Source: www.openlettersmonthly.com.

Man with walking stick in the streets of Trieste, date unknown. Source: www.museojoycetrieste.it.