When was Ulysses first published?
Ulysses was first published in Paris on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday, by Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company. It was printed in Dijon in an edition of 1,000 copies, in a blue cover chosen to match the Greek flag.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. The publisher's note printed in the first edition.
The publisher asks the reader’s indulgence for typographical errors unavoidable in the exceptional circumstances.
What it means in plain English
The French printers did not read English, and Joyce kept rewriting on the proofs, so the first edition was full of errors.
Early copies were smuggled into Britain and America, where the book was banned.
Literary context
The printer was Maurice Darantière of Dijon.
References
- Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company (1959)
- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (revised edition, 1982)
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Questions readers ask
Why blue?
Joyce wanted the blue of the Greek flag, for Homer.
Related terms
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach was the American bookseller who first published Ulysses, in Paris on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. Her shop, Shakespeare and Company, took on the book when no publisher in Britain or America would risk it.
Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company was Sylvia Beach's English-language bookshop and lending library in Paris, at 12 rue de l'Odéon from 1921. It published Ulysses in 1922 and was a home for writers such as Hemingway. A later shop of the same name, opened in 1951, still trades by the Seine.
The Gabler edition
The Gabler edition, “Ulysses: The Corrected Text” (1984), was edited by Hans Walter Gabler, who rebuilt the text from Joyce's manuscripts and proofs and made about 5,000 corrections. The most famous restores a line about love in Episode 9.