Widely regarded as one of the defining achievements of literary modernism, James Joyce's Ulysses follows three central characters through the streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904: advertising canvasser Leopold Bloom, aspiring writer Stephen Dedalus, and Bloom's wife, Molly. Drawing upon Homer's Odyssey, Joyce transforms an apparently ordinary day into an extraordinary exploration of consciousness, memory, sexuality, identity, religion, politics, and the rhythms of everyday life. Through radical experimentation with language, shifting narrative perspectives, interior monologue, parody, and an astonishing variety of literary styles, Joyce reimagines what a novel can accomplish. Both intellectually demanding and frequently comic, Ulysses remains a landmark of twentieth-century literature and one of the most influential novels ever written.
This 1946 Random House corrected and reset edition preserves the complete unabridged text, together with Morris L. Ernst's foreword and the historic 1933 United States court decision by Judge John M. Woolsey that declared the novel not obscene, clearing the way for its legal publication in America. This attractive mid-century hardcover features Ernst Reichl's distinctive book design and the striking original dust jacket designed by E. McKnight Kauffer.
About the Author
James Joyce revolutionized the modern novel through his radical experimentation with language, narrative structure, symbolism, and psychological interiority. Born in Dublin, Joyce spent much of his adult life in continental Europe, drawing extensively upon his Irish upbringing and the social, religious, and political landscape of his homeland.
His major works include Dubliners (1914), a collection of short stories; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), an influential modernist coming-of-age novel; Ulysses (1922), his celebrated masterpiece; and Finnegans Wake (1939), an extraordinarily experimental work of linguistic invention.
Joyce's influence extends far beyond modernist fiction. His treatment of consciousness, ordinary experience, mythological structure, and the possibilities of literary language fundamentally expanded the expressive range of the novel. Ulysses is particularly important for its transformation of an ordinary day in Dublin into a vast literary and philosophical exploration of human experience.
Although Joyce received no major literary awards during his lifetime, his reputation has grown to extraordinary stature. June 16, the date on which Ulysses takes place, is celebrated internationally as Bloomsday, a testament to the novel's enduring cultural influence.
