Ulysses. Edited by Danis Rose. Foreword by Seamus Deane. Cornwall: Houyhnhnm Press Ltd, 2004. Pp lxxxiii, 769.  Publisher’s red cloth, title lettered in silver on upper cover and on spine, matching cloth slipcase. A fine bright copy.

One of 26 Lettered Copies [this copy letter ‘E’] specially bound and Signed by the Editor.

A legally controversial edition, it is accompanied by an informative eighty-eight page introduction. This edition was published by exploiting a loophole in the ruling by excising material – about 200 words – that had been drawn from previously unpublished manuscripts.

Danis Rose was responsible for the ill-fated Reader’s Edition of Ulysses in 1997, which was denounced by the estate as “the equivalent of drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa”. After a long and bitter court case in London, the book was effectively suppressed.  A controversial feature of the 1997 book was Rose’s decision to include apostrophes in Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. After the court ruling Rose commented:  “I must announce – to the relief of many of her suitors – that Molly has once again been stripped of her apostrophes.”