The battle over the U.S. publication of "Ulysses"

The intriguing court battle it took to get Joyce's book published in America

Cerf told Joyce that Random House would publish the book in the U.S. – but only if the courts allowed him.

That’s when the plotting began. Cerf hired acclaimed obscenity lawyer Morris L. Ernst to provoke a legal challenge to the initial obscenity ruling.  In 1932, a copy of Ulysses was shipped to the U.S. and Joyce’s American allies made sure that customs agents seized it, setting the stage for an epic battle over an epic novel.

The case – The U.S. vs. One Book Called Ulysses – began in July of 1933.

 

Is It Pornographic?

Ernst was happy to see the case go to Judge John M. Woolsey, known as a sophisticated writer and thinker who loved books.  That was important because now it was not just racy excerpts on trial but the entire Ulysses novel – which features scenes in a brothel as well as Molly Bloom’s famous, uh, climactic scene.

As The New York Times reported during the trial: “The principal question [Judge Woolsey] had to solve … was whether or not Joyce’s purpose in writing the book had been pornographic.”

Woolsey took the time to read Ulysses start to finish before the trial, which began with arguments about some of the four-letter words Joyce chose to use.

Ernst argued that these words were offensive only because society chose to make them taboo – and that, furthermore, they were more honest than evasive phrases such as “sleep together.”  Similarly, the coarse thoughts of Joyce’s characters are rendered in realistic stream-of-consciousness, and thus marked a legitimate contribution to the literary art form, Ernst argued.

Nevertheless, the prosecution had one seemingly airtight argument: certain sections of Ulysses, when read on their own, were sexually explicit and inarguably obscene, and thus illegal. What would happen if a child were to get his hands on such material?

Ernst’s response: “Adult literature (should not) be reduced to mush for infants.” On December 6, Judge Woolsey delivered his opinion.

 

“His Locale Was Celtic”

“I hold that Ulysses is a sincere and honest book,” Woolsey wrote. “The words which are criticized as dirty are old Saxon words known to almost all men, and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe, by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe.”

Woolsey even suggested that readers should keep in mind Joyce’s Irish setting. “In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.”

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Nster.com