Ulysses, Egoist Press, 1922
Ulysses/ by James Joyce. London: Published for the Egoist Press, 1922. Printed by Maurice Darantiere at Dijon, France. No. 1604 of 2000 copies on handmade paper. The first English edition of Ulysses (printed in France). Bound in quarter brown calf with cream linen boards, gilt spine lettering and marbled endpapers.
Marbled endpapers
Five hundred of the two thousand numbered copies were sent to the United States, and were reported to have been seized and burned by United States government authorities.
James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882 in a Dublin suburb. He was educated by Jesuits, and considered joining the Jesuit order at 15, but decided instead to attend University College, where he had an undistinguished career at the Jesuit-run institution. He studied languages including French, German and Norwegian, the knowledge of which are evident in his final work, Finnegan’s Wake. The novel which most people associate with Joyce, Ulysses, and which is often considered his best work, was written in Zurich and finally finished in Paris. The 18 chapters of the novel describe the life of its hero, Leopold Bloom, during one day in June 1904. Some of the chapters were serialized in The Little Review between March 1918 and December 1920, but copies were seized as pornographic, and the editors convicted of obscenity. It finally appeared in book form, published by Shakespeare & Co., Paris, on February 2, 1922. With no chance of printing it in England, Harriet Shaw Weaver, founder of the Egoist Press, had it printed in Dijon France in October 1922.
Publishing note
Ltd edition note
Although printed in France, this was considered to be the first English edition, since the Egoist Press was legally based in London. Of this printing of 2000 copies, 500 were confiscated in New York as being obscene. After much controversy, Judge John M. Woolsey ruled in a New York Court in 1933 that it was not pornographic and the first trade edition of Ulysses was published by Random House in 1933.
We are fortunate to have one of the 2000 Egoist Press copies (ours is no. 1604) in our Rare Book Room, a gift of Dr. Harry B. Abrahams of New York City.
Ulysses
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