Banned in the United States and United Kingdom throughout the 1920s, Ulysses turned conventional ideas of the novel inside out with its bold new form, style and theme. Deeply rooted in the Greek myth of the hero of the Trojan War, Joyce bases his novel on Ulysses or Odysseus, who is doomed to voyage for ten years before returning home to Ithaca. Joyce had been deeply influenced by the Iliad and the Odyssey, which he had read from Charles Lamb's adaptations as a child. In fact, he considered him the epitome of the heroic ideal and constantly thought of giving the myth a new dimension in modern literature.

However, the reader must be cautioned that it is not an easy book to read. It was also burdened by a strange and complicated publication history. Joyce's original handwritten manuscript was typed by a number of less than competent typists who made a series of grammatical and spelling errors, leading to great confusion. It went through 18 different versions, each of which was full of