The Ulysses Trials: Beauty and Truth Meet the Law

Hassett (W.B. Yeats and the Muses), a lawyer and literary critic, utilizes both his areas of expertise in his analysis of the obscenity trials that plagued the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, first serially in the Little Review magazine and subsequently in book form. Hassett intends the book as a corrective to other recent histories of Ulysses’s controversial publications (most explicitly Kevin Birmingham’s 2014 The Most Dangerous Book) and the popular characterization of the lead lawyer in the first trial, John Quinn; Hassett argues that Quinn mishandled the obscenity case brought against the Little Review. He has a smooth scholarly style that draws the reader in, and his argument is well-researched and persuasive. The book also provides portraits of Little Review publisher Margaret Anderson and co-editor Jane Heap, as well as lawyers and judges from the later trials. The book closes with an examination of the Ulysses decision’s influence on literature and censorship, and a postscript outlining the post-trial lives of the main players. Hassett creates an engaging portrait of the dawn of literary modernism and will leave readers nostalgic for a time when a challenging literary novel could be the cause of so much trouble. (Dec.)