Books to have

When shopping for your copy of Ulysses, you will likely see many options online or in any bookstore.  I strongly recommend either the Gabler edition (the most widely used version of the text in Joyce scholarship) or the 1934 Random House edition (corrected and reset in 1961).

You will also want to get a copy of Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated, an invaluable resource for explaining the many thousands of allusions and references made throughout the novel.

I’ll also make a shameless plug for my own book, The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was published in February of 2022 by Johns Hopkins University Press. I spent a year re-writing and revising much of the content of UlyssesGuide.com off-line, and I think you’ll find it an improvement over what I’ve offered here on this website for free.

If you want support and guidance beyond my book or this website, I recommend the following books:

• The New Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires

• A Reader's Guide to James Joyce by William York Tindall

• James Joyce's Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert

• James Joyce's Ulysses: Critical Essays, edited by Clive Hart and David Hayman

If you enjoy reading scholarly insight into the novel, I have found these books useful:

• Ulysses: The Mechanics of Meaning by David Hayman

• Joyce's Voices by Hugh Kenner

• The Argument of Ulysses by Stanley Sultan

• Ulysses by Hugh Kenner

• Ulysses on the Liffey by Richard Ellmann

• The Economy of Ulysses by Mark Osteen

If you are interested in Joyce's life and the fascinating story of Ulysses's publication, check these out:

• James Joyce by Richard Ellmann

• Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation by Noel Riley Fitch

• Shakespeare and Company by Sylvia Beach

• The Most Dangerous Book by Kevin Birmingham

For insight into Dublin as depicted in Ulysses, including maps, routes, and timelines, give these a look:

• James Joyce's Dublin by Ian Gunn and Clive Hart

• Faithful Departed by Kieran Hickey

• The Ulysses Guide by Robert Nicholson