The Scandal of Ulysses: The Sensational Life of a Twentieth-Century Masterpiece

A Joyce scholar from Ireland, Arnold here jumps into the controversy surrounding the 1986 publication of Ulysses: The Corrected Text , edited by Hans Walter Gabler. Arnold circuitously traces the history of Joyce's masterpiece from its original publication in Paris in 1922 by Shakespeare and Co. through the labyrinth of successive versions edited by Joyce and others, partly in an attempt to get the ban (on grounds of indecency) lifted from the work. Today venerated by scholars, Ulysses , Arnold contends, has become a prisoner of Joyce academicians who wrangle over the ``correct'' version. Arnold argues that Gabler's 1986 edition, a computer-based merging of all previous editions, is a seriously flawed work whose publication was motivated by the Joyce estate's desire to maintain the financial benefits of copyright. Although this study will be of interest to scholars, general readers will be hard put to decode the nitpicking. (July)