Ulysses (Gabler Edition) - Softcover

Joyce, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394743121 ISBN 13: 9780394743127

Publisher: Vintage, 1986

Synopsis

The Gabler edition of Ulysses, the greatest 20th-century novel written in English, contains corrections to more than 5,000 errors in earlier editions.

Almost as soon as Ulysses first appeared, in Paris in 1922, James Joyce began to compile a list of errata, and publishers have continued the process ever since, often inadvertently adding to the list. In 1974, an international team of scholars headed by Professor Hans Walter Gabler began to study manuscript evidence, typescripts, and proofs in order to produce as accurate and complete a new edition as possible. First published in 1984, the Gabler edition was hailed as a monumental achievement, one that makes this great and complex novel more accessible and enjoyable than ever before. Also included is a preface by the distinguished Joyce scholar Richard Ellmann, a foreword and note on the text by Gabler, and an afterword by Michael Groden.

Set entirely on one day, 16 June 1904, Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus as they go about their daily business in Dublin. From this starting point, James Joyce constructs a novel of extraordinary imaginative richness and depth. Unique in the history of literature, Ulysses is one of the most important and enjoyable works of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author

James Joyce, the twentieth century's most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. After receiving a rigorous Jesuit education, twenty-year-old Joyce renounced his Catholicism and left Dublin in 1902 to spend most of his life as a writer in exile in Paris, Trieste, Rome, and Zurich. His writings include Chamber Music (1907), Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Exiles (1918), Ulysses (1922), Pomes Penyeach (1927), and Finnegan's Wake (1939). Ulysses required seven years to complete and Finnegan's Wake, took seventeen. Both works revolutionized the form, structure, and content of the novel. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941.

From the Back Cover

Considered the greatest 20th century novel written in English, in this edition Walter Gabler uncovers previously unseen text. It is a disillusioned study of estrangement, paralysis and the disintegration of society.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

--Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

--Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Milligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.

--Back to barracks! he said sternly.

He added in a preacher's tone:

--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. 

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm. 

--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394743121
• ISBN 13: 9780394743127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688