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United States v. One Book Called Ulysses
The trial that forever changed U.S. obscenity law
Every June, is celebrated in Dublin, Ireland, and other cities around the world. Bloomsday is a celebration of James Joyce’s novel , which was famously banned in the United States until 1933.
Published in Paris by American expatriate on February 2, 1922 — Joyce’s fortieth birthday — Ulysses is one of the world’s most important novels, a masterpiece of modernist thought and linguistic virtuosity.
A reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey, the 700+ page novel occupies a single day, June 16, 1904, and tells the story of three characters: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and Bloom’s wife, Molly. Ulysses brims with wordplay, symbolism, and historical and literary allusions. It is also bawdy, raunchy, and occasionally disgusting.
Prior to 1922, Joyce published excerpts of the book in a Chicago-based magazine called The Little Review, published by Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap. An April 1920 excerpt, the so-called “” section, depicts Bloom masturbating on a beach as a young woman, Gerty MacDowell, flashes him a bit of thigh…
