The Most Dangerous Book The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses (2014)

The Most Dangerous Book The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham is a very comprehensive account of the extensive efforts of censors to block sales and distribution of Ulysses.  This was done, as Birmingham details at length, though pressures exerted on publishers, the banning of the book by American customs and postal authorities, legal charges of obscenities and other methods.  Birimgham details the eventual success of the book's advocates.   We are made to see the cultural wars centering on the greatest work of literary modernism.

This book does what it purports to do.  If you want an exhaustive account of the difficulties of first distributing Ulysses this will provide that.  I recently read James Joyce -  A New Biography by Gordon Bowker.  It covers the same ground and gives you an insightful and interesting biography of Joyce, and costs less.  Most people will find they can get all the information they might want with a Google search and a few minutes on Wikepedia.  This is not a reflection on the excellant research and literary ability of Birmingham. It is just a fact.   Probably Bowker and Birmingham's books were in press about the same time.  

                                                                      

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