JOYCE, James (1882-1941). Ulysses. New York: Random House, 1934.

8vo. Original red and black stamped cream cloth (slight soiling); original red and black printed dust jacket (a few vertical creases, a few tears to rear panel with very minor losses only occasionally affecting letters, some chipping or short tears to edges, some minor soiling). Provenance: James Whitaker (bookplate).

FIRST AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET with “Reichl” credit on front panel. Bennett Cerf, who co-founded Random House with Donald S. Klopfer, hired attorney Morris Ernst to argue the case against the ban on Ulysses in the United States. On 6 December 1933, Judge John M. Woolsey rendered his landmark decision to lift the ban, and Random House published the present edition about a month later. In the publication, Random House included a foreword by Morris Ernst, as well as the full text of Judge Woolsey’s decision. The publisher also reprinted an April 1932 letter from Joyce to Bennett Cerf (“since you are determined to fight for its legalization in the United States and to publish what will be the only authentic edition there, I think it just as well to tell you the history of its publication in Europe and the complications which followed it in America”). Slocum and Calhoun A21.

JOYCE, James (1882-1941). Ulysses. New York: Random House, 1934.