James Joyce's Ulysses

James Joyce (1882-1941) has been called the greatest 20th-century novelist writing in English. Ulysses is his masterpiece. The manuscript of Ulysses is among the premier treasures of the Rosenbach. Dr. Rosenbach owned a first edition of the novel – the banned book had been smuggled into the country for him in 1922. He purchased the manuscript at the auction of lawyer John Quinn’s collection in 1924. (Quinn had defended Joyce and his publishers against obscenity charges under the Comstock laws in 1920.) Selections from the manuscript are always on display. View a complete guide to the works by and about James Joyce in the Rosenbach collection here.

The Rosenbach celebrates the Joycean tradition annually on Bloomsday, June 16. Bloomsday, the only international holiday in recognition of a work of art, brings scholars, devotees, and the general public together on Delancey Place for a day of dramatic readings from the novel. The Rosenbach also produces a special exhibition related to Joyce and Ulysses, drawing from its substantial collection of modern literary materials.

Collection Highlights

Photograph of 7 Eccles Street

In the fourth chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses, the reader meets Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged advertising salesman who is Joyce’s modern equivalent of Odysseus. In these pages, Bloom makes tea and toast for his wife, Molly, then leaves the house to get a kidney for his own breakfast. In 1950, a…
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Two Worlds Monthly

The American publisher Samuel Roth serialized Ulysses in his new magazine Two Worlds Monthly, but without permission from Joyce. This acquisition completes the Rosenbach's set of the Two Worlds Monthly's pirated publication of Ulysses. American readers were exposed to the first chapters of Ulysses in the New York magazine The…
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Ulysses: autograph manuscript, “Circe” episode

Joyce began work on "Circe" when he got to Paris in July of 1920. His work was slowed by a missing trunk of books and notes  that Stanislaus had sent from Trieste. By the time he finished this draft in December, he claimed to have written in out at least…
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Woolsey Decision in U.S. vs. One Book Called Ulysses

In 1921, Ulysses was banned in the U.S. due to objections to masturbation in the Nausicaa episode. The issue was revisited in 1933 in the case United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses. In contrast to the earlier ruling, Judge Woolsey decided that obscenity was not to be defined by…
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Happy Birthday, James Joyce … and Ulysses!

This post was originally published at the Free Library of Philadelphia blog. Nearly 100 years ago today, on February 2, 1922, bookstore-maven-cum-publisher Sylvia Beach stood anxiously waiting on the platform at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris for the arrival of some very precious cargo on its way from Dijon: two copies of …

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Everything you need to know about Bloomsday

What is Bloomsday? June 16 is the day the world celebrates James Joyce and his literary masterpiece, Ulysses. The celebration is called “Bloomsday” after one of the main characters, Leopold Bloom. As the residence of the complete manuscript of Ulysses, the Rosenbach has celebrated Bloomsday for more than 20 years. The main event features readings from Ulysses, …

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James Joyce and his feline friends

With June 16 merely days away, we’re getting serious about Bloomsday here at the Rosenbach. Certainly more serious than Ulysses: this novel may contain passages of great beauty, but it also contains moments of great silliness. Consider “Calypso,” the fourth chapter and the reader’s first introduction to Leopold Bloom. “Calypso” features many of the themes and literary techniques that established …

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Mapping Ulysses

James Joyce is said to have told his acquaintance, artist and writer Frank Budgen, that he wanted his novel Ulysses to “give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth, it could be reconstructed from my book.” Devoted Joyceans and Ulysses fans seem to have taken this as a challenge: …

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The Many Bans of Ulysses

Joyceans and longtime Rosenbach friends are well-acquainted with the history of how James Joyce’s Ulysses ran afoul of the Comstock Law, which prohibited use of the postal service to mail “obscene” literature among other things. The magazine The Little Review, which published the first chapters of Ulysses serially up until the “Nausicaa” episode in 1921, was brought …

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The Festival of St. James

Awhile ago I came across this charming drawing by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was included in the biography of the bookseller and bibliophile Sylvia Beach. Sylvia Beach owned and operated Shakespeare & Company, an English-language bookstore in Paris which played a critical role in the development of many key literary figures in the early twentieth century. …

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