Bradley, Jenny S., 1886-1983.

1964 marked the year in which Jenny S. Bradley--Mrs. William Aspenwall Bradley--and Susan Sherman began corresponding; a relationship which lasted until Bradley's death, at age 97, in 1983.

Bradley had made a name for herself in publishing as the literary agent who encouraged James Joyce's efforts and brought him to the front of the literary scene. In addition to professional encouragement, Bradley gave Joyce money, sheets, blankets, and even a table. Following World War II, she played a key role in promoting Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and others to American audiences abroad.

Bradley was a serious literary presence of the "old guard"; an entity that was clearly dying, in her opinion, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a die-hard "insulaire", Bradley cultivated relationships with Charles de Gaulle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rainer Marie Rilke, Charles Seignobos, and others, many of whom paraded through weekly literary salons in her apartment on the Ile-St. Louis in Paris. Her letters reflect a continued interest with the French literary scene and in the literary relationships developed over the years through her work with Harcourt, Brace, with Macmillan, and with Gallimard (Bradley's husband had worked as the Paris agent for Harcourt, Brace, and Macmillan up until his death in 1939). Bradley herself had been approached to complete the French translation of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and later went on to translate and produce Joyce's play "Exiles."

Susan Sherman was introduced to Bradley through the literary agent Paul R. Reynolds. Sherman is a poet, playwright and essayist based in New York City. She is a founding editor of IKON magazine and is a member of the faculty at Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College, where she teaches in the culture and media program.