Defending the “Moral Right of Writers” to own and protect their works, James Joyce once said: “A work belongs to its author by virtue of a natural right, and thus the courts ought to protect an author against the mutilation and publication of his work just as he is protected against the ill use someone might make of his name.”

This exhibition examines several such “mutilations” of Joyce’s own work while tracing the impact of obscenity laws and copyright laws on the international publication history of his novel Ulysses. With many Joyce copyrights having expired on December 31, 2011 there is no better time to look back on the legal history of Ulysses.