2 February 1922: The publication of Ulysses by James Joyce on this day in Paris, France. Considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century it had a huge influence on the genre of the writing of fiction and broke new ground in how to describe the human condition in prose. Hailed as a masterpiece by fellow novelists it quickly fell foul of authorities who saw it as vile and disgusting and without literary merit.

Indeed it had already to legal difficulties in the USA where extracts had appeared in the  Little Review a publication that specialised in Avant Garde type of articles and had featured some chapters from the forthcoming book that led to the owners being prosecuted in the Courts of New York.

The most important outcome of the case was that it rendered publication of Ulysses in the United States impossible for the foreseeable future. In Britain the authorities did not go to the trouble of having a court case; they simply suppressed the book on the ruling of the director of public prosecutions. Five hundred copies were burnt at the port of Folkestone in January 1923. And the British literary magazine The Egoist had found it impossible to print any more than a few short extracts before its printers refused to undertake any more of the work.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ulysses-at-100-when-joyce-s-novel-languished-in-publishing-limbo-1.4781769

However all was not lost and in the more libertarian atmosphere of Paris an American lady Sylvia Beach, who had recently opened an English-language bookshop -Shakespeare and Company - undertook to publish Ulysses. It was here on 2 February 1922 on James Joyce’s 40th birthday that it first saw the light of day in a limited print run of 1,000 copies at the very expensive price of three guineas or 150 francs which put it out of the price range of the average reader.

Nevertheless out of this very shaky start the novel grew in reputation as more literary types heard of it and then read it themselves. The story centred around the perambulations & thoughts and emotions of the books’ central character Leopold Bloom and his alter ego Stephen Dedalus, both of them reflections of James Joyce in middle age and as a younger man.

Today the Novel is world famous and has made Dublin a mecca for those who love and are fascinated by the book set in the City on the 16th June 1904

- Bloomsday!