Ulysses – James Joyce

Ulysses. By James Joyce. First English Edition. Published in 1922.  Printed in Paris, France. “Published for the Egoist Press, London, by John Rodker, Paris”. October 1922. Quarto, rebound in later morocco, gilt tooling, fillet, dentelle, and armorial at both front and rear boards. Some toning and light surface soiling to title, bound without the half title and the rare errata, often missing [a facsimile of the errata is however laid in at rear]. Some wear at edges of spine, bit of loss at head. One of 2,000 copies.

First English Edition (printed in France), number 245 of of 2000 numbered copies on handmade paper. As is noted on the verso of the limitation page ‘Ulysses’ was first published by Shakespeare and Company of Paris in February 1922 in an edition limited to just 1000 copies. Within a month of the publication this first printing was practically sold out; eight months after the initial printing [October 1922], a second printing [the first English edition] appeared.

This edition is actually rarer than the limitation statement would suggest. In a letter from Harriet Shaw Weaver, dated February 25, 1947, the following account is recorded: “A good number of copies sent by ordinary book post to the U.S.A. got through to their various destinations, but some time between October 1922 (when the Egoist edition was published) and December, the U.S.A. censorship authorities evidently became suspicious; copies were held up and accumulated at the U.S.A. post offices until finally 400-500 copies were confiscated and burnt.” (Slocum, A18.)