Two Worlds Monthly, for the increase of the gaiety of nations, Vol. 03, No. 03 (August, 1927)

doi:https://doi.org/10.58066/1aeh-mp14

Two Worlds Monthly, for the increase of the gaiety of nations, Vol. 03, No. 03 (August, 1927)

Public

Edited by Samuel Roth, a New-York based publisher of literature and erotica, who pirated some of Joyce’s works and was responsible for publication of the first complete, albeit corrupt, text of Ulysses in the United states. After the struggle in getting Ulysses initially published, which resulted in Sylvia Beach's printing in Paris, problems were still not resolved in America. The ban on the book prompted the publication in Samuel Roth's Two World's monthly "an expurgated version of Joyce's Ulysses without the author's permission and without paying for reproduction rights." (The New York Times). In response, 167 authors, including Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, and T.S. Eliot, signed a letter of protest in defense of the author. Publishers, seeing how many important people were defending the book, and taking into account its popularity in Two Worlds Monthly began to solicit Joyce for publication of Ulysses in America. After a prolonged battle with Sylvia Beach, who at the time held the rights to publication, Joyce made a deal with Random House. Its appearance in America then sparked the famous court case United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses, where Judge John M. Woolsey decided that "whilst in many places the effect of Ulysses of the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac. Ulysses may, therefore, be admitted into the United States." --Manhattan Rare Books Company. This issue is dedicated to E. Powys Mather and has the eleventh installment of Ulysses by James Joyce. Also includes a monetary offer to James Joyce from editor Samuel Roth to cover printing Ulysses without permission.

In Collection: