Decades after its initial publication, James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is considered a modern classic, continuing to influence contemporary literature and serving as a reminder of what can emerge from genuinely inventive writing.
But Ulysses wasn’t always the uniformly beloved (with a few exceptions) work it is today. A 1921 ruling by the New York State Supreme Court against a journal that had published an excerpt of the book meant that it was illegal for American publishers to issue the novel itself. The story of its European publication by Sylvia Beach of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company is a thrilling enough account on its own — but the story of its American publication is a fascinating history in its own right.
Looking back on this history in The New York Review of Books is Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon, who knows a few things about publishing and contentious topics. He traces the convoluted path to getting Ulysses published in the United States, which began with an unlicensed edition by Samuel Roth — who did something similar with D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Enter Bennett Cerf of Modern Library and Random House, who teamed with attorney Morris Ernst to challenge the legal precedent that kept Ulysses from being legitimately published in the United States.
There was one other problem with challenging obscenity law on the basis of the First Amendment: Cerf would actually have to publish the book first. He would have to license it from the author, advertise and solicit orders for it, typeset and print it, and ship it to booksellers. All that would cost money and labor and then, after he had spent tens of thousands of dollars, the court might very well rule against him, leaving Ulysses to the tender mercies of a bunch of vice squad bravos carrying cans of kerosene.
The account of the legal strategy that Cerf and Ernst used, as well as the array of larger-than-life characters featured in the fight to legitimately publish Ulysses, makes Chabon’s account a thrilling foray into history — as well as one with continued relevance to debates over contentious art today.
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