275

James Joyce (1882-1941)

Ulysses. First American edition.

New York: Random House, 1934.
Stated first authorized American edition, octavo; bound in publisher's cream cloth over beveled boards, lettered in red and black, top edge tinted red; in the unclipped first issue jacket with Reichel credited on the front panel (jacket toned, particularly at spine, small losses and tears, tape reinforcements to lower edge of spine panel; pale marginal toning throughout, minor offsetting to title, open corner tear affecting text to page 151; spine sunned, spotting, extremities rubbed, cloth slightly darkened at edges, small closed surface tear to lower flyleaf); 8 1/8 x 5 3/8 in.

First published in Paris in 1922, Ulysses was banned in the United States until co-founder of Random House Bennet Cerf and attorney Morris Ernst successfully argued against the ban in 1933. An "unauthorized" first American edition had appeared serially in Samuel Roth's Two Worlds Monthly in 1929. However, most copies of Roth's edition were destroyed following a raid at his offices later that year. The present edition was published about a month after Cerf and Ernst won their case, United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses, and reprints both the full statement of approval by Judge John M. Woolsey and a 1932 letter from Joyce to Cerf chronicling the book's complex publication history.

Slocum & Cahoon A21.

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