The publication of the Bodley Head issue of Ulysses, certainly the most handsome edition of the text published in Joyce’s lifetime, followed the legal success of the 1934 Random House Ulysses trial, which established the principle that a “classic” text was allowed greater leeway in the matter of morals. The “classic” argument was backed up by the luxuriousness and expense of the Bodley Head edition, for experience had proved over years that expensive books were much less likely to be attacked for obscenity, and it was published with no public scandal.
A very good copy, with lightly soiled wrapper, chipping along the top and bottom edges with some loss to both ends of the spine, some worm holes through back of wrapper and into the cloth cover which is slightly faded at top and tail of spins, otherwise internally clean.
Slocum & Cahoon A23.
