February 2^nd 2022 marks the centenary of the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses. This is a famously difficult work and has defeated many in their attempt to read it. Indeed, Joyce stated that he had put so many enigmas and puzzles into it that it would keep the professors busy for centuries, and it certainly has if one judges by the shelves of commentary in the bookshops.  The complex artistic structure, the literary engineering, the unique and inspired use of ‘internal monologue’ or ‘stream of consciousness’ and the diversity of styles all contribute to its genius.

With all this, Ulysses is going to be a test for most readers and the difficulty is exacerbated by the punctuation which is novel and sparse with little differentiation between narrative and ‘internal monologue’ giving rise to the usual complaint “it’s hard to know who’s saying what”.

This edition, first published ten years ago, adds punctuation where deemed necessary by the editor and (the most radical innovation) differentiates the text of the interior monologues by way of a separate font. The text is based on three early editions, the original 1922 edition, that of the Odyssey Press of 1932 and the Bodley Head text of 1936 – the last to be corrected by Joyce himself. Nothing, other than the punctuation, has been added or removed.

This edition is enhanced by over a hundred pages of notes and ‘Reading Guidelines’  outlining the structure of the book and giving some additional help to the general reader at whom this edition is aimed.