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The greatest novel of the 20th century.
When Joyce completed Dubliners in 1906, he considered including a short story called Ulysses (which he had not yet written). Instead, he decided Ulysses would be a short book and began writing it in 1914. Seven years and 732 pages later, Ulysses was completed. (Sort of. Joyce had a hard time letting go of manuscripts and was constantly revising and adding to Ulysses.) During those seven years, Joyce’s friends and fellow writers became restless. Ezra Pound, working as a foreign editor for the American magazine The Little Review, approached Joyce about serializing Ulysses in the magazine. Margaret Anderson, editor of The Little Review, wrote, "This is the most beautiful thing we'll ever have. We'll print it if it's the last effort of our lives." Chapter one appeared in the March 1918 issue.

In June 1919, the United States Post Office determined that The Little Review was in violation of Postal Laws and Regulations, due primarily to the " obscene" content of Joyce's work, and refused to distribute certain issues of the magazine through the mail. But, Joyce continued to send his writing and The Little Review continued to publish it. By this time, Pound was already editing the content of Joyce's writing, without his permission or knowledge. In 1920 Joyce complained in a letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver that "many passages are omitted and hopelessly mixed." Due to the court case in 1921, The Little Review was forced to stop the serialization of Ulysses. A U.S. book deal for Ulysses would be impossible. In 1919, Weaver's The Egoist magazine in London had serialized five episodes, but couldn't find a printer to take on the entire work. But, eventually

Darantiere of Dijon agreed to print the work with the understanding that it would not be paid for until (and unless) money from the subscriptions arrived. Fortunately, each of the 1,000 copies sold, many purchased by Joyce,s fellow writers, with the notable exception of George Bernard Shaw.

Continuing...

The English edition was published in October of the same year and sold at a significantly lower price, but was plagued by censorship difficulties from the start. The book was intercepted at customs, except for those few copies that were smuggled into the U.S. under the title, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

The U.S. ban was lifted in December 1933, the same week prohibition was repealed. As in the case of prohibition, the ban on Ulysses contributed to its significance and popularity. In 2002, a rare copy of Ulysses sold at Christie's for $460,500, the highest price for a 20th century book.

The Greatest Book of the 20th Century