The first edition of Ulysses by Odyssey Press was published in December 1932. Printed in Germany, it comes in two volumes bound in paper wrappers. The author’s name on the cover and the text on the spine is set in capitals from Naudin. For the title, the accompanying open face, Le Champlevé, was used.

Naudin was drawn by French painter, draftsman, caricaturist, and engraver Bernard Naudin (1876–1946). Design started in 1912, following a request by Georges Peignot (1872–1915). In 1924, shortly after Peignot & Fils had merged with Deberny & Cie, the foundry then known as Deberny & Peignot had completed the series comprising roman, italic, and the open all-caps style. For a typeface with Art Nouveau influences, Naudin is very late, cf. Grasset from 1898. The decision to eventually produce it might have been made following the success of faces like Cochin and Nicolas Cochin as well as the open Moreau-le-jeune and Mercure.

From The James Joyce Center:

The Odyssey Press edition was the first to appear after Sylvia Beach gave up her exclusive right to publish Ulysses. It contained many corrections and by its fourth edition in April 1939 it was considered the most correct text of Ulysses even though it still contained errors.

Odyssey Press was an imprint of Albatross Press and was set up in 1932 specially to publish Joyce’s Ulysses. Albatross had been established in 1931 by John Holroyd-Reece, a publisher of art books at Pegasus Press, and Max Christian Wenger, who had worked for the renowned Tauchnitz publishers. The first book published in the Albatross Modern Continental Library in 1932 was Joyce’s Dubliners, and Holroyd-Reece and Wenger began to bombard Joyce with requests to bring out an edition of Ulysses.

Another post for Bloomsday.

James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place on a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin, through which runs the river Liffey. The unknown designer picked a very appropriate typeface and filled it with water...

Since today, June 16, is Bloomsday to James Joyce fans, here's an addition to Stephen Coles' excellent post about the c.1977 update of Modern Library covers...

New York: Random House, 1934. First American edition. The typeface in use is Magere Weiß-Kapitale a.k.a. Weiss Initials No.1.

“Probably the best known design I ever made.” — Ernst Reichl

“Ernst Reichl’s title spread breaks a title across the gutter for the first time in the history of American book design, with the large initial establishing the design concept for the interior text.” — Martha Scotford

“With reference back to the title spread, each section begins with an opening spread that jolts the reader with a large initial and the first words of the text in all caps. As with the title, Reichl used an enlarged Weiss initial, redrawn in a slightly condensed manner. The basic text face is Baskerville.” — Martha Scotford

The title on the jacket is handlettered. The author’s name in reversed lowercase letters is in Futura Black. See Reichl’s mockup of the dust jacket drawn in 1933 on tdc.org.