Ulysses [published in Two Worlds Monthly, ed. Samuel Roth]. by JOYCE, James - 1927

New York: Two Worlds Publishing Company,, 1927. 2 volumes, octavo. Original red pebble-grain cloth, printed paper labels to spines with limitation statements completed in manuscript, top edges gilt, red endpapers. Title pages printed in red and black. Vol. II inner hinges slightly tender with tape-repair to second leaf of advertisements. An excellent copy. First edition in book form of Samuel Roth's infamous piracy of Ulysses, number 94 of 500 copies produced specially for subscribers and bound from the parts with stab-holes visible. This copy has the Preface signed by Roth. Roth had originally reprinted thirteen bowdlerised episodes from Ulysses across eleven individual instalments in his Two Worlds Monthly serial, Vols. I-III (July 1926 - October 1927), with Vol. III.4, containing the fourteenth episode, and a preface by Roth both appearing here for the first time. Roth was known for publishing sexually explicit literature and other underground material, including a pirated edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover. His pirating of Ulysses "resulted in considerable public indignation and provoked the 'International Protest' signed by 167 artists and writers and printed in transition I" (Slocum & Cahoon p. 100). Joyce was able to obtain an injunction against Roth, but not until after Two Worlds Monthly had already ceased publication. An excellent copy, scarce in this condition.