08/13/2026
Tell us about a complicated man… and we’ll tell you about a complicated book. We’ve just seen The Odyssey, and we were inspired to put together a list of our favorite books about epic journeys. Number one on that list (besides Homer)? James Joyce’s Ulysses, of course. Here is a later printing published by John Lane at the Bodley Head, in original dust jacket with the Homeric bow to spine (1958). WHICH IS YOUR PERSONAL FAVORITE? The Odyssey or Ulysses… cast your vote!
Considered Joyce’s masterpiece and one of the most important works of Modernist literature, the stream-of-consciousness novel follows Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus through Dublin on an ordinary day (June 16, 1904–notably the same day that Joyce first went on a date with Nora Barnacle, who would later become his wife). The book is heavily fragmented and allusive, with a structure that loosely parallels Homer’s The Odyssey. Regarding the book’s complexity, Joyce said, “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.”
Ulysses was first published serially in The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, at which time copies of the magazine were seized and the magazine’s publishers were taken to trial due to the sexually explicit nature of the novel. Because of the controversy surrounding Ulysses, Joyce was unable to find a publisher for the book until his friend Sylvia Beach, the American owner of Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, agreed to publish it.
