Talk:Ulysses (novel)

Information about this edition
Edition	undetermined
Source	Ulysses, Edition 11 from Project Gutenburg
Contributor(s)	User:Editor at Large
Level of progress	75%: complete, proofread by one user, and standard.
Notes	see below
Proofreaders

Versions

This is widely rated as the most important novel of the 20th century. We really need to have this in here in good quality. But there are many conflicting versions.

Print editions

According to the Wikipedia article, "The publication history of Ulysses is disputed and obscure. There have been at least eighteen editions. To complicate matters, there are variations between different impressions of each edition." Even before that, it "was serialised in the American journal The Little Review from 1918 until the publication of the Nausicäa episode led to a prosecution for obscenity. In 1919, sections of the novel also appeared in the London literary journal The Egoist. The book was first published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1922, but was banned in both the United States and the United Kingdom until the 1930s." Thankfully its 1922 publication makes the uncensored version PD, although only 1000 copies were printed then. Further, determining the original text "is problematic, in that there is no unified manuscript as such: Joyce wrote approximately 30% of the final text as marginal notes on the typescripts and proof sheets. Perhaps more confusing is the fact that for hundreds of pages the extant manuscript is merely a 'fair copy' Joyce made for sale to a patron. For about half the chapters of Ulysses Joyce's final draft is lost. For these, the existing typescript is the last witness."

Editions first published after 1922 could be copyrighted, if the changes are deemed significant enough to merit copyright protection. The various editions seem, as best as I can tell, to be:

1. the original serialization, not completed
2. the extremely rare 1922 Paris printing
3. the pirated Roth edition, published in New York in 1929, presumably identical to the Paris printing
4. the Odyssey Press edition of 1932, a favorite of reprinters -- but including revisions by Stuart Gilbert, making its copyright status unclear
5. the first official American edition of Random House, 1934
6. the first English edition of the Bodley Head, 1936
7. the revised Bodley Head Edition of 1960
8. the revised Random House edition of 1961
9. the Gabler edition of 1984

Again, this information is largely from Wikipedia, which goes on to note: "According to Jack Dalton (p. 102, 113), the first edition of Ulysses contained over two thousand errors but was still the most accurate edition published. As each subsequent edition attempted to correct these mistakes, it incorporated more of its own." Several long, scholarly books and extended articles go into long debates about what was Joyce's intention. For our purposes, I think it would be best to reproduce the 1922 text if possible, including "mistakes". This is available in print as

• Ulysses, The 1922 Text, Oxford University Press (1993). A World Classics paperback edition with full critical apparatus. ISBN 0-19-282866-5
• Ulysses: A Reproduction of the 1922 First Edition, Dover Publications (2002). Paperback. ISBN 978-0486424446
• Ulysses: A Facsimile of the First Edition Published in Paris in 1922, Orchises Press (1998). This hardback edition closely mimics the first edition in binding and cover design. ISBN 978-0914061700

So far as I can tell, this 1922 Paris edition is not available online anywhere.

Online versions

• Project Gutenberg has an unspecified version, without chapter divisions, but with three "parts" listed as I, II, and III. It says "etext was prepared by Col Choat <colchoat@yahoo.com.au>." This has html markup for italics, indentation, etc., so this could be a very good version to use.

• Bibliomania also has an unspecified version, this one with 18 chapters and chapter names ("Calypso", "Lotus Eaters", "Hades", etc.) not divided into three "parts". Each page is separate, and navigation is difficult, but italics are preserved.

• The University of Pennsylvania and Online Literature both give the text in plaintext only, no formatting, and no edition specified. It's divided into 18 unnamed "episodes" at UPenn, and 18 named "episodes" at OL.

• Google Books gives the pagescans for an unspecified version. It gives the ISBN of 1603034994, which doesn't match any record at Amazon, the Library of Congress, etc. There is no title page, but the end says "Trieste-Zurich-Paris 1914-1921"

Request

If anyone can access any of the three literal reprints, and has access to a scanner, could you scan it? I know, this would be a huge project, but it would be an invaluable service. This isn't available anywhere, and you would be a part of making one of the greatest works of Western Literature available to the masses. After the pages are scanned, I (and others) could proofread in chunks, starting probably with the Gutenberg version and altering the text as needed to match the 1922 version. Is anyone up to it? —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 17:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The Gutenberg version should the 1922 version (plus transcription errors.) It's come up on the mailing list, and the copy was made with a 1922 edition at hand, and they have photocopies of the TP&V to prove it. I think we'd be interested to know if any significant part didn't match the 1922 edition.--Prosfilaes 14:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

rename

I think this page should be moved to Ulysses (novel) as all of the subpages of this work are named Ulysses (novel)/.. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure why it was moved to "Ulysses (Joyce)" to begin with. Someone did so a while back and didn't touch the subpages, I haven't a clue why... anyway, I agree with your suggestion and was going to suggest the same myself. -- Editor at Large • talk 09:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Wmaltby (talk • contribs) was following the WS:STYLE guide, which says to dab pages with the authors surname, however without moving all pages it causes more problems than it solves. Also our style guides are not sufficiently developed for them to be followed precisely. We have yet to learn all the problems, so it makes sense to not fix things that arn't broken. In this case, "Ulysses (novel)" is sufficiently unique so there are no immediate problems. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright status

One of the open secrets of Ulysses is that it is in the public domain not because of the date of its publication, but that it was judged obscene at the time, & because US copyright law denied copyright to any obscene publication. According to Sally Dennison, (Alternative Literary Publishing (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1984) in 1970 a California professor discovered an unauthorized edition of Ulysses published by a pornographer, which "contained advertisements for condoms, dildos, and other exotica". When the professor alerted Random House (who published the authorized edition of Ulysses), he was informed that there was nothing they could do, since the publishers' lawyers were not certain their copyright was valid. "They did not want the publicity a lawsuit against a pirate would bring, the lawyers told O'Brien [the professor], especially since they were not confident of winning." (p. 196)

Based on this, I say we state up front that Ulysses is in the public domain, based on this specific principle of copyright law, use the 1934 Random House edition (or the one with the smutty ads), & fuck the corporations who are the real copyright terrorists. -- Llywrch (talk) 23:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No. In 1970, that might have been the case, but in 1998, the URAA returned foreign works to copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC)