James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses

by Paul Vanderham

Overview

James Joyce and Censorship is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the trials of Ulysses. Based on extensive archival research, it is also the first study of the trials to analyze their influence on the reception and composition of Ulysses in the context of Joyce's lifelong struggle with the censors, to evaluate their significance as an important turning point in the history of censorship, and to emphasize their relevance to contemporary debates regarding freedom of literary expression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814787908
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	11/01/1997
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Paul Vanderham is Assistant Professor of English at the King's UniversityCollege. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	viii
	Abbreviations	xi
	List of Illustrations	xii
	Introduction	1
1	Ulysses at War	16
2	Ulysses and The Young Person	37
3	Making Obscenity Safe for Literature	57
4	The United States against Ulysses	87
5	The Well-intentioned Lies of the Woolsey Decision	115
6	Late Encounters with the Enemy	132
	Conclusion	150
Appendix	The Censor's Ulysses	169
	Notes	211
	Index	237

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Did the artistic aspirations of Ulysses make its salacious parts any less salacious? This work of scrupulous scholarship is an entertaining and important book that traces the fascinating historical details behind the Ulysses trials. It shows that judge Woolsey's famous decision was based on testimony by experts who were calculating, fuzzy, and illogical. Vanderham exposes some of the facile pieties about Art that have prevailed in the academy and the courts ever since. His analysis has important implications for the law, helping us see that such judicial decisions should have a different basis altogether."

-E. D. Hirsch, Jr.,author of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know

Editorial Reviews

"Did the artistic aspirations of Ulysses make its salacious parts any less salacious? This work of scrupulous scholarship is an entertaining and important book that traces the fascinating historical details behind the Ulysses trials. It shows that judge Woolsey's famous decision was based on testimony by experts who were calculating, fuzzy, and illogical. Vanderham exposes some of the facile pieties about Art that have prevailed in the academy and the courts ever since. His analysis has important implications for the law, helping us see that such judicial decisions should have a different basis altogether."

E. D. Hirsch

This study of the censorship of James Joyce's is largely based on research of such archives as US Post Office and Department of Justice records, and interviews of descendants of US Attorneys Sam Coleman and Nicholas Atlas. Vanderham (English, The King's U. College) argues for a close connection between the legal and literary aspects of the controversy, and maintains that the censorship of the novel affected both its reception and its author's compositional style. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

The history of James Joyce's battles with the censors is legendary....Paul Vanderham puts a different spin on the story: he argues that Joyce developed an increasingly complex prose style as a deliberate strategy to circumvent the censors. -- Joelle Zois, The New York Times Book Review

Joelle Zois

'Vanderham's excellent account traces the obscenity prosecutions of Joyce's book and comes to some polemical conclusions.' - Steven Poole, Guardian

From the Publisher