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James Joyce
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Ulysses: An Illustrated Edition Hardcover – Illustrated, January 25, 2022

by James Joyce (Author), Eduardo Arroyo (Illustrator)
4.7 out of 5 stars 103 ratings
This strikingly illustrated edition presents Joyce’s epic novel in a new, more accessible light, while showcasing the incredible talent of a leading Spanish artist.
 
The neo-figurative artist Eduardo Arroyo (1937–2018), regarded today as one of the greatest Spanish painters of his generation, dreamed of illustrating James Joyce’s Ulysses. Although he began work on the project in 1989, it was never published during his lifetime: Stephen James Joyce, Joyce’s grandson and the infamously protective executor of his estate, refused to allow it, arguing that his grandfather would never have wanted the novel illustrated. In fact, a limited run appeared in 1935 with lithographs by Henri Matisse, which reportedly infuriated Joyce when he realized that Matisse, not having actually read the book, had merely depicted scenes from Homer’s Odyssey.

Now available for the first time in English, this unique edition of the classic novel features three hundred images created by Arroyo—vibrant, eclectic drawings, paintings, and collages that reflect and amplify the energy of Joyce’s writing.
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  1. Print length
    720 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Other Press
  4. Publication date
    January 25, 2022
  5. Dimensions
    8.37 x 1.98 x 12.7 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1635420261
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1635420265
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A new edition of Ulysses is presenting the work under a fresh light…Just as Joyce used an array of styles to write Ulysses, Arroyo deployed a range of techniques to represent the author’s characters as they meander through Dublin…vivid.” —New York Times
 
“Enchanting.” —The New Yorker
 
“Arroyo’s playful, colorful works share a palette with the Pop Art prevalent in the 1960s…The effect—of richness within simplicity—suits Ulysses.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“Ulysses is an infinitely pleasing book. One of the great mistakes about it is that it is somehow too difficult or inaccessible. It is neither. These brilliant illustrations by Eduardo Arroyo celebrate the book in the most profound way, and work as an accompaniment to one of the greatest works of the human imagination that history has ever produced.” —Colum McCann, National Book Award–winning author of Let the Great World Spin
 
“A gloriously illustrated edition…a handsome, coffee-table-style book that bears eloquent testimony to the inexhaustible capacity of Ulysses to inspire others.” —Irish Examiner
 
“Wonderful…The dreamy surrealist images [Arroyo] presents to us on the page add a colorful third-dimension quality to Joyce’s novel. They also provide a much-needed bit of breathing space for the reader to occasionally pause and ponder.” —The Independent (Ireland)
 
“Madness is, of course, part of the appeal of [Ulysses]. A new edition…splendidly adorns the gibberish.” —New Criterion
 
“Hundreds of full-color illustrations by the late Spanish painter Arroyo distinguish and enrich this hefty…new edition.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Elegant…vibrant.” —Hyperallergic
 
“Aside from being one of the most important Spanish painters of the last fifty years, Eduardo Arroyo has also been a devoted reader and a magnificent writer…[Ulysses is] without a doubt his most ambitious book project.” —El País

“A very special edition of Leopold Bloom’s adventures.”—La Razón

About the Author

James Joyce, born in Dublin in 1882, is one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. His most well-known publications include Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. He died in Zurich in 1941.
 
Eduardo Arroyo, born in Madrid in 1937, was a painter, graphic artist, author, and set designer. In 1982 he received Spain’s National Award for Plastic Arts. His paintings are showcased at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid. He died in 2018.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Other Press; Illustrated edition (January 25, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 720 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1635420261
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1635420265
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.37 x 1.98 x 12.7 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 out of 5 stars 103 ratings

About the author

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James Joyce

James Joyce

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James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century.

Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilised. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism and his published letters.

Joyce was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin—about half a mile from his mother's birthplace in Terenure—into a middle-class family on the way down. A brilliant student, he excelled at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.

In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated permanently to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

Bio from from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

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4.7 out of 5 stars
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10 customers mention "Visual quality"8 positive2 negative

Customers appreciate the beautiful illustrations in the book, describing it as gorgeous.

"looks great, fast ship" Read more

"...a page, a chapter, or the whole book and it will be worthwhile and beautiful time. Great purchase, it's a statement and an art piece." Read more

"beautifully illustrated. grand novel" Read more

"The book is gorgeous, however, the copy I received had repeated sections and other chapters completely missing from the book...." Read more

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Customers find the book worth the money, with one mentioning it's a nice book that's worth visiting frequently.

"...you can read a page, a chapter, or the whole book and it will be worthwhile and beautiful time. Great purchase, it's a statement and an art piece." Read more

"...this is a book to visit with frequency and to skim through with joy." Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

  • michel smith
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
    Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2025
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    looks great, fast ship
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  • LTinLA
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Showpiece Meant to Be Displayed More Than Read.
    Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Edit: This review is for the huge version of this novel illustrated by Eduardo Arroyo

    This review is not about the novel, if it can
    even be called that. This is about the book. I just received it and flipped through it. This book is a piece of art in and of itself. It is a Showpiece. And I love it. I would give it infinite stars if I could.

    The illustrations are unique. They are a mash up of color sketches meets impressionism meets almost childlike drawings at times. The book has sewn binding with thick magazine-like pages It is huge and heavy. It is meant to be a Showpiece for display not really for reading. If you wanted to read it you would need a table to lay it flat on. And lay flat it does because of the sewn binding.

    Finally a bit of a warning: Much like the novel itself, some of the drawings are very bawdy, graphic in a way, and sexual in nature; like a young teen's version of dirty drawings.

    A million star work of Art!
    30 people found this helpful
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  • Scott Collins
    5.0 out of 5 stars This book is GORGEOUS
    Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2022
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    I've always considered reading Ulysses more like visiting an art museum than reading a book. Just like you can visit the Met and choose to visit every corner, or just a specific exhibit, or just a specific painting...it will be a worthwhile trip. With Ulysses you can read a page, a chapter, or the whole book and it will be worthwhile and beautiful time. Great purchase, it's a statement and an art piece.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Rufus Fuscus
    5.0 out of 5 stars A modernist classic now nesting new illustrations
    Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2022
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    The illustrations by the late Eduardo Arroyo add an intriguing and often enticing counterpart to Joyce's text. This is not a reading edition (it weighs over seven lbs.); this is a book to visit with frequency and to skim through with joy.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • consumer of goods
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful illustrations
    Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022
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    Book is physically large, heavy and well-produced. Paper is very nice, smooth.

    Does any know which version of the text is used ?
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Garrett Zecker
    4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully produced volume, but the vibrant illustrations don't add much
    Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2022
    Two books that I made my way through this summer were the newly illustrated Eduardo Arroyo edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Kevin Birmingham’s biography of the book itself, The Most Dangerous Book.

    While I have read Ulysses several times in this lifetime, I am always looking for a new excuse to pick it up and have a different experience with one of my favorite books of all time. The text is widely spaced in this large, heavy edition, and while I couldn’t pinpoint where it seemed that in order to make the book fit the dimensions and the illustrations, there were some editorial cuts throughout that didn't affect the book itself but made it seem a little unfamiliar to me. Arroyo’s illustrations were meant to be the centerpiece, however, and the large format of the book (as clunky, difficult to handle, and heavy as it was) seemed to facilitate the best presentation of the vibrant mixed media and tempera paintings scattered throughout. Some of the smaller, black and white sketch style illustrations appeared to repeat several times, but overall, the sheer volume of Arroyo’s dedication to illustrating the entire text over his lifetime is unmistakable. The paintings and drawings are somewhat clownlike at times, overlapping and metamorphosing over one another at times to reflect some of the more dreamlike passages. Wading through the text in this way allowed for a bit of self-forgiveness as these road signs captured the more elemental portions and helped point the way to a dreamlike destination that added to the experience. I felt like the faces were clownish, but fit Arroyo’s overall dramatic style of mod figure drawing. The one thing that I wish Arroyo did in his work that I felt was missing that is somewhat elemental to Joyce’s work is the fact that every episode in Ulysses is written in a different form, but Arroyo seemed to me to be relatively conservative, and predictable between episodes save for one of them. This was perhaps the biggest of the mistakes in the artwork to me, but perhaps it isn’t as translatable to the visual arts and illustration if one is a visual artist and illustrator – if I was, I would have attempted to vary the style of each episode’s artwork to reflect the way Joyce wrote them. Overall, a beautifully printed and prepared volume that does a great deal of honor to Arroyo’s life work in attempting to illustrate one of the greatest works of literature of all time.

    As I reread Ulysses, I also decided to dive into Kevin Birmingham’s beautiful and expansive biography of the book itself, The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle For James Joyce’s Ulysses. Birmingham touches on so much in this thick volume, yet it is a surprisingly breezy, fascinating read that I flew through it and enjoyed it a great deal. There are several threads that make this piece so fascinating, and Birmingham expertly weaves them together chronologically to showcase the wild ride this book took to make it to publication and worldwide acclaim. The book is part biography of James Joyce, Norah Barnacle, Sylvia Beach, Harriet Shaw Weaver, and Supreme Court Justice John Woolsley (who spent much of his life in Petersham, MA, a place I have frequented a great deal and had no idea his connection and contribution to that sleepy town). It is the story of its origins, how it came to be written and rewritten as Joyce navigated his relationship with Barnacle and their children, and the legal battle the book faced in the supreme court, the United States Post Office, and the public eye (and how so many copies were smuggled into the United States from Paris). It is also the story of the evolution of book marketing, editing, and censorship as a whole in the United States – and the ways in which the world was affected by the laws before it and the laws afterward. I was fascinated by so much Birmingham presents, from the obvious fact that there really weren’t any practical reasons the book was deemed obscene to the amazing fact that book blurbs and review quotes being introduced to book jackets were solely part of the smuggling of the book into the United States to build a legal defense of the literary merit of the novel (a defense that it didn’t even need after judge Woolsley read it himself and found it to be one of the most genius things he had ever read even though he admitted that he didn’t completely understand it).

    For me, this was a wonderful summer of Ulysses, and I was as happy as ever to make my way through these two great books – one for the first time and the other for the, who knows how many’th. Both of these are great ways to experience Ulysses regardless of how close you are to the text; in fact, I could see this illustrated version being great for a beginner’s reading. Highly recommended way to dive back in, regardless.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Toby R. Arons
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2022
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    I’m just finishing Ulysses and about to start over again from the beginning. The beauty of this book will add to my enjoyment.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • mfree
    5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful book
    Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2023
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    beautifully illustrated. grand novel
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Brenda Torres
    4.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book, poor packaging
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2024
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    Gorgeous book, high quality paper, stunning illustrations. Unfortunately, it was loose in a big box and arrived with a corner bashed in and the sleeve somewhat torn. It's also a little dirty, as was the other book I ordered, but I was able to clean that one. Perhaps best to order from your local bookshop, as I have seen from previous reviews that this has happened before and it is a relatively high-priced item for a book, to be so cavalierly packed.
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  • Marco
    4.0 out of 5 stars Per i collezionisti di edizioni particolari
    Reviewed in Italy on March 31, 2022
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    Edizione in inglese e in grande formato di Ulysses, impreziosita da illustrazioni ben poco - come dire - didascaliche. Non ho gli strumenti critici per inquadrare lo stile del disegnatore messicano, certo si tratta di disegni talvolta a tutta pagina, altre di dimensioni più ridotte, ma abbastanza astratti da rendere necessario la conoscenza del contenuto degli episodi per coglierne il senso. Mancano del tutto le note al testo. Un oggetto da collezione per feticisti di Joyce e delle sue opere.
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  • WineDine
    5.0 out of 5 stars Art for Literature's Sake
    Reviewed in the Netherlands on January 29, 2022
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    Beautiful illustrations in one of the world's most famous novels. You need to lay it down on a table for reading, because it is heavy and big (I have the hardcover). The price is very modest for such a beautiful piece.
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  • monica
    5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilloso, ilustraciones preciosas y un libro para coleccionar
    Reviewed in Spain on October 2, 2023
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    Todo perfecto, libro increíble con ilustraciones del pintor Eduardo Arroyo
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  • Liblobster
    2.0 out of 5 stars Damaged
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2022
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    My book arrived in a big box in which it had clearly rattled around and become quite damaged. The corners all bashed. Shame as it is a present. I’ll keep it for myself now as can’t be bothered sending back.
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