James Joyce (1882–1941)
“Decoy” copy of Ulysses
Paris, France: Shakespeare and Company, 1930
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
“Decoy” copy of Ulysses
In an attempt to evade censors, the binding of this very rare “decoy” copy of Ulysses identifies it as the popular children’s book The Bobbsey Twins in the Country (1907). The title page, however, is identical to that of the publisher’s earlier editions. Ulysses was first published on February 2, 1922, in a limited edition of 1,000 copies under the imprint of Sylvia Beach’s Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. Joyce continued to revise his text through nine rounds of printer’s proofs, introducing many small errors and elisions that contributed to the work’s reputation of being a “difficult” novel. One other known decoy copy, at Southern Illinois University, is presented as an autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant by a fake author, “Earl D. Hale.”
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
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