On February 2nd, 1922, James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses was published. It had been released in serialized form since 1914, but this was the first time the literary work was assembled as a complete work. Since that time, Ulysses has been regarded as one of the most important novels of the modern age. In 1999, the Modern Library (a publishing company owned by Random House) named the work as number one on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

A Historical Newspaper Perspective

Ulysses has a long history of censorship and controversy stemming from depictions of sex and the experimental prose of the novel. In 1921, before the work was even published as a whole, it was banned in the U.S. for obscenity. In 1933, a District Judge ruled that the work could not be banned:

"Federal Judge John Munro Woolseys decision that James Joyce's 'Ulysses' may be read legally by Americans very likely will prove to be one of those painful steps by which humanity escapes, in historical perspective, from slavery by ignorance and meddlesomeness," reported the Steubenville Herald-Star on December 16, 1933. "It is, perhaps, not wholly accidental that it was taken simultaneously with repeal of the 18th amendment."

"Its immediate significance is the working definition of obscenity laid down for future judicial use by Judge Woolsey. Simplified from his opinion, it is that only literary dirt for dirt's sake can be barred from the American reading public. Inclusion within a book of words, phrases and thoughts not customarily employed and entertained by ordinary people does not damn the book if they are employed legitimately in exposition of a theme enjoyable on a higher basis than lust."

I, for one, have never read the work - it is a novel I've always meant to read (after trying Finnegan's Wake, I partially threw my hands up in despair). Have you read Ulysses, or have thoughts on Joyce? Sound off in the comments section!