Dublin's National Library paid $1.5 million for a signed, handwritten manuscript of the longest chapter of James Joyce's ``Ulysses.''

Dublin's National Library paid $1.5 million for a signed, handwritten manuscript of the longest chapter of James Joyce's ``Ulysses.'' The ``Circe'' episode accounts for nearly one-fifth of the 1922 epic. It describes the nightmarish journey of the book's two central characters, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, through the Dublin underworld. The manuscript sold at Christie's auction house on Thursday for $346,000 more than the pre-sale estimate. The $1,546,000 sale price includes the auction house's commission.The manuscript had been kept in a leather slipcase for nearly 80 years and belonged to an unidentified relative of John Quinn, an American lawyer who had once helped Joyce.