Ulysses (No. 455 of 1,000)

Ulysses was first published on February 2, 1922, to coincide with James Joyce’s 40th birthday. The novel was published in an edition limited to 1,000 copies under the imprint of Sylvia Beach’s Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. Printed in Dijon by Maurice Darantière, the printed text was initially prepared from a carbon typescript copy of Joyce’s manuscript draft. Joyce began to correct the carbon copy, made over several years by a series of typists, once plans to publish it were under way. Joyce continued to revise his text through nine rounds of printer’s proofs; inevitably, the revisions introduced many small errors and elisions. This contributed to the reputation of Ulysses as a “difficult” novel. Although Joyce subsequently compiled a list of errors, he never oversaw the publication of a corrected edition.