£300
FIRST AUTHORISED AMERICAN EDITION, 8vo, pp. xvii, [i], 767, [1]. Original cream cloth, front board and spine lettered in black and red, top edge brown. A little spotting. Somewhat soiled, spine a little marked and darkened. Ownership inscription of Helen M. Watt to flyleaf, bookseller’s label of Librairie Étrangère, Paris, to pastedown, their flyer tipped-in to title-page.
The first official American printing of Joyce's landmark novel, published in January 1934 following the December 1933 court ruling that the book was not obscene, which opened the door for it to be officially published in the USA. It was preceded in America by a 1929 piracy by Sam and Max Roth, which was doubly illicit in that it was unauthorised by Joyce and also legally obscene; and a numbered portion of the 1922 Egoist Press edition specifically produced for export to America, although large portions of both of those editions were seized by US authorities. This Random House edition represents the first time Ulysses was available to the general public in high street bookstores, and the American public were enthusiastic about it - ten reprintings in the following 5 years totalled more than 50,000 copies. Slocum and Cahoon distinguish two 'printings' of this first - a short run of 100 copies 'for reasons of copyright' and a further 10,000 or to complete the edition prior to publication - but these are bibliographically indistinguishable and probably represent two states of one printing either side of a short pause to confirm copyright had been secured.
