Ulysses by Joyce, James - 1922

Paris: Shakespeare and Co, 1922. First edition, one of 750 copies on handmade paper (total edition, 1000 copies). 1 vols. 4to. Original "Greek flag" blue printed wrappers. A bump at the head of the spine, few insignificant chips to spine and joints (far less than usual). A near fine copy. Quarter red morocco slipcase with chemise. First edition, one of 750 copies on handmade paper (total edition, 1000 copies). 1 vols. 4to. A Beautiful Unrestored Copy. The first printing of Ulysses comprises 1000 copies in three limitations: the first 100 on Dutch handmade paper, numbered, and signed by Joyce, price 350 francs; 150 large paper copies numbered 101-250, on Vergé d'Arches, unsigned, at 250 francs; and the final 750, numbered 251-1000 and printed on a lesser grade of handmade paper, at 150 francs.

Arguably the most significant and celebrated English language novel of the twentieth century, the publishing trials and tribulations of Ulysses are legend. Stymied by obscenity charges that prevented its serial publication in The Egoist, Joyce's masterpiece was published instead by Sylvia Beach in the winter of 1922 under her imprint at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Beach's ledger records that this copy was among those bought by Davis & Orioli, booksellers in Florence.

This copy all the more attractive for not having been rebound, repaired, trimmed, or sophisticated in any way. Slocum A17; Connolly Modern Movement, 42; cf. Horowitz, p. 121