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Editorial In 1999 the Friends of the Zürich James Joyce Foundation decided to offer a bulletin of current writings to the Foundation, its collaborators and the members of the Friends. The initiators felt that they should not be made to suffer for their initiative by any obligation to publish it regularly, and they chose the name An Occasional as a safeguard against reprehension for delays. True to its intended form, the first issue of this collection now appears nearly two years after its conception, containing, among other texts, some contributions from the Foundation's 1999 August Seminar on Annotation. The Foundation may be seen as an indirect result of Swiss secret security precautions during the Cold War. When the head of the Swiss Security Services was looking for a safe house in Ireland to shelter the Swiss Government in the case of a feared Russian invasion (which had already happened once, some two hundred years ago) he found that Jury's Hotel in Dublin was about to be pulled down, together with Jury's Antique Bar, which was up for sale. He was fascinated by the Bar's Victorian interior, bought it, and had it brought to Zürich in numbered pieces where it underwent careful anastylosis. It was reopened in 1978, with the help of the Union Bank of Switzerland, under the name "James Joyce Pub", in the block housing the bank's international offices. Of course, patrons of the refurbished tavern, mostly bankers, were not necessarily very well acquainted with Joyce and his works. Their need for relevant information could not be ignored. However, the English Department at the University had other priorities, and Joyce studies were merely extracurricular activities. There was only one fully fledged Joyce expert in Zürich at the time, Fritz Senn. In order to keep his outstanding collection in Zürich, suggestions were made to the head of the bank, Dr. Robert Holzach, that it should be converted into a foundation in 1985. Thanks to his continuing support and fund-raising the Zurich James Joyce Foundation became financially independent, with Fritz Senn as its director. The society of Friends of the Zürich James Joyce Foundation provides additional support. For the last fifteen years the Foundation has been an international research centre with its highly specialised library attracting both resident and visiting scholars. Visiting researchers and writers are often invited to give a Strauhof lecture. The Zürich James Joyce lectures are held on special academic occasions. Weekly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake reading groups are open to everyone. The annual August workshops where international scholars discuss one specific theme for one week, the Strauhof and Zürich James Joyce lectures, and spontaneous writings by members of reading groups were only occasionally followed by publications as there was no channel for the continuing information of the Foundation, its friends and collaborators about these proceedings. The Occasional, the present collection of papers and notes, now serves as a record of work done at the Foundation, and as a platform for the meeting of minds, on paper and on the Internet. There are two groups of contributors and expected readers with quite different backgrounds: international Joyce researchers, and general Joyce readers and the Friends in particular. The Occasional has to reflect this difference, displaying both original critical and historical research and comments, annotations and free communications by members of local reading groups which may contain nothing new for refined specialists but convey useful down-to-earth information to readers who are trying to come to grips with Joyce's writings. Hansruedi Isler An Occasional: Bulletin of the
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