Three love letters written by James Joyce to Nora Barnacle have sold for record prices at Sotheby's in London today.
The first of the letters, dated 12 September 1904 and almost certainly the earliest letter from Joyce to Nora in private hands fetched £33,600. It was written exactly two months after Joyce and Nora began their affair and less than a month before their elopement from Dublin to Trieste.
The second letter, written the following month in which Joyce calls Nora 'my sweetheart', sold for £84,000.
The final letter, which was written during their separation of December 1909 and until recently thought to have been lost, was sold for £240,800.
It was one of a series of highly explicit letters exchanged between Joyce and Nora at the time.
Among the other items sold today were Joyce's own copy of the 1910 edition of Dubliners by the Dublin publishers Maunsel and Co which fetched £84,000 and a Ulysses first edition inscribed to Joyce's brother which sold for £112,000.
A telegram sent from Nora to Joyce in November 1909 sold for £6,000 and a one-page autographed manuscript entitled 'Molly Bloom Again' fetched £14,400.
