Ulysses

by Mogul Books (Editor), James Joyce

Overview

Welcome to James Joyce's Ulysses. In this classic edition of this novel, first published by Sylvia Beach in Paris, February 1922, we are proud to offer you the best Kindle edition of this literary classic featuring one of the most acclaimed stories of the 20th century.

A man leaves home in the morning, fulfills his daily tasks, and returns home at night. It was around this deceptively simple, almost banal skeleton, that James Joyce drew up what came to be the one of the greatest novels ever written.

Inspired by Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses is set in Dublin and follows the adventures of Leopold Bloom and his friend Stephen Dedalus, throughout June 16th, 1904. Like the Homeric Odysseus, Bloom must overcome numerous obstacles and temptations to return to the apartment in Eccles Street, where his wife, Molly, awaits. To create this rich and vibrant character, Joyce mixed numerous styles and cultural references, in a kaleidoscope of voices and tones, in such a way that still challenges generations of readers and scholars around the world.

The cult around Ulysses began even before its publication in book form, when excerpts from the novel began to appear in a U.S. literary journal. Because of these passages, Ulysses was even banned in the United States, on charges of obscenity, triggering a lengthy legal war, which would be resolved only eleven years later, with the release of the novel on American soil.

But beyond all the disputes and controversies, Ulysses remains as a groundbreaking novel, stretching and shaping the English language to its limits, in order to achieve a faithful, witty and moving portrait of what is conventionally called "the modern man".

As you read this Mogul Classics edition of James Joyce's Ulysses, you will relive the most acclaimed novel of the 20th century.

May all your dreams come true

Mogul Classics Editor

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781500324469
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	06/27/2014
Pages:	566
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.26(d)

About the Author

James Joyce (1882–1941) is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century. After graduating from University College Dublin, Joyce went to Paris. During World War One, Joyce and Barnacle, and their two children, Giorgio and Lucia, moved to Zurich where Joyce began Ulysses. He returned to Paris for two decades, and his reputation as an avant-garde writer grew. Joyce’s works include the short story collection Dubliners (1914); novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939); two poetry collections Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927); and one play, Exiles (1918). Every year on 16 June, Joyceans across the globe celebrate Bloomsday, the day on which the action of Ulysses took place, proving Joyce’s importance to literature.

Bob Joyce is a grand-nephew of James Joyce, and is on the board of the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. She lives in a thatched house in Co. Wexford.

Read an Excerpt

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

—Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Milligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.

—Back to barracks, he said sternly.

He added in a preacher's tone:

—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. 

He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm. 

—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

—The mockery of it, he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek.

What People are Saying About This

Edmund Wilson

One of the most remarkable features of Ulysses is its interest as an investigation into the nature of human consciousness and behavior...Joyce has studied what we are accustomed to consider the dirty, the trivial and the base elements in our lives with the restlessness of a modern psychologist; and he has also...done justice to all those elements in our lives which we have been in the habit of describing by such names as love, nobility, truth and beauty.

From the Publisher

"Ulysses will immortalize its author with the same certainty that Gargantua immortalized Rabelais, and The Brothers Karamazov immortalized Dostoyevsky.... It comes nearer to being the perfect revelation of a personality than any book in existence."
-The New York Times

"To my mind one of the most significant and beautiful books of our time."
-Gilbert Seldes, in The Nation

"Talk about understanding "feminine psychology"— I have never read anything to surpass it, and I doubt if I have ever read anything to equal it."
-Arnold Bennett

"In the last pages of the book, Joyce soars to such rhapsodies of beauty as have probably never been equaled in English prose fiction."
-Edmund Wilson, in The New Republic

Introduction

The 100 Best English Language Novels of the Century

"We tried to pick books that were of great merit and proven over time." -- Christopher Cerf, chairman of the Modern Library Editorial Board

On Monday, July 20th, the editorial board of the Modern Library released a list of the 100 best English-language novels of the century. Topping the list was Ulysses, the unique, original novel that recounts a day in the lives of a group of Dubliners. The same book that was banned in the United States from 1920 to 1933 for obscenity now tops the list of novels written in English in this century, followed in descending order by The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Lolita, and Brave New World.

The editorial board that created this list comprised Christopher Cerf, Gore Vidal, Daniel J. Boorstin, Shelby Foote, Vartan Gregorian, A. S. Byatt, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and William Styron. The top five novels originally tied for first place, all selected by nine out of ten editorial board members. Then, in another vote, the board members listed the books in order, resulting in the conclusive top five.

All the judges agreed that Ulysses was deserving of the rank of top book of the century. James Joyce was a brilliant author who, many think, ignited modern literature much as Picasso ignited 20th-century art. Joyce spent seven years working on this novel, as evidenced in his masterful prose. But is it the best English-language novel of the 20th century? Why are there only eight women on the list of 100? Is Catcher In the Rye really the 64th best novel of our century?

Editorial Reviews

Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the twentieth century. . . It is likely that there is no one writing English today that could parallel Mr. Joyce's feat, and it is also likely that few would care to do it were it capable. -- Books of the Century; New York Times review, May 1922

New York Times Book Review

"Ulysses will immortalize its author with the same certainty that Gargantua immortalized Rabelais, and The Brothers Karamazov immortalized Dostoyevsky.... It comes nearer to being the perfect revelation of a personality than any book in existence."
-The New York Times

"To my mind one of the most significant and beautiful books of our time."
-Gilbert Seldes, in The Nation

"Talk about understanding "feminine psychology"— I have never read anything to surpass it, and I doubt if I have ever read anything to equal it."
-Arnold Bennett

"In the last pages of the book, Joyce soars to such rhapsodies of beauty as have probably never been equaled in English prose fiction."
-Edmund Wilson, in The New Republic

From the Publisher