100 years after the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses was published, the Museum Strauhof pays tribute to this masterpiece with an exhibition: Ulysses von 100 Seiten (Seiten can translate to both “sides” and “pages”). 100 exhibits on show help visitors to understand the turmoil and corners of Ulysses and guide them piece by piece through the exhibition. The exhibition and its accompanying publication use NN Didot Modern and LL Circular.

In his latest novel, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce writes about a dreamlike vision without a beginning or an end. The story is set in the village of Chapelizod, near Phoenix Park, in the suburbs of Dublin. The story, which is a dream of the main character, takes place entirely in one night. The author's stream of consciousness becomes a dreamlike expression.

Indeed, Joyce, by abolishing the typical grammatical and orthographic rules, creates a new language that cannot be translated, or, rather, which is available to an indefinite number of interpretations. The reader, dealing with obscure words, is part of a universe in which any subject is apparently identical but always different from himself. The several and personal interpretations of the meaning of the words, taking place in indefinite times and sets, lead back to the reader’s oblivion. All the interpretations together compose a universal story: a cyclical text that defines itself uninterruptedly.

By manipulating the letter shapes, set in GT America Mono, the narrative is partially compromised in its understandability. This makes the reader having to deal with the signifier, something which leads to even more interpretations.

Furthermore, new meanings of the text appear in the space-time coordinates. The link space/time is found several times in paradoxical form in the text. These elements, capable of leading the reader back to a tangible space, are actually destabilizing. A cyclical disorientation reproduced in the creation of unique copies, book by book, page by page.
The darkness created by Joyce is not only a useful key for the reading of the text, which allows the unhinging of certain linguistic rules — adapting his lexicon to a dreamlike environment — but it is also necessary to transform the simple reading in an action of active participation to the story. This is how Finnegans Wake blurs the boundaries between translation and interpretation, general and particular, author and reader.

Student project for ISIA Urbino, MA Communication and Design for Publishing
Supervision: Davide Riboli

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...

The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky

Gordon B. Neavill (1979). The Modern Library Series: Format and Design, 1917–1977. Printing History, 1(1), 26-37:

In the mid-1970s, as the prices of both paperback and hardbound books escalated, Random House began to hope that there might again be a market for comparatively inexpensive hardbound editions of classics. In the spring of 1977 thirty-two Modern Library titles were reissued in newly designed jackets and bindings. The reissues included titles from the old regular and Giants series and were priced between $4.95 and $7.95.

A classical appearance was sought for the reissues, and an attempt was made to keep costs as low as possible. The dust jackets, designed by Random House's corporate art director R. D. Scudellari, employ a uniform typographic design and are printed in two colors on uncoated tan paper. [S. Neil] Fujita's version of the torch-bearer appears in ocher and the author and title, lettered by the free-lance typographer Ray Cruz, are in one of four colors: dark maroon, blue, dark gray, or green. The binding material is smooth, rust-colored Kraft paper. The books are perfect bound instead of sewn. In contrast to the 1960s, when the Modern Library switched to offset printing for most titles, many of the reissues are printed letterpress.

Thanks to Paul Shaw for his help researching this series.

Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth

Bulfinch’s Mythology

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire

Dubliners by James Joyce
Saint Joan, Major Barbara, Androcles and the Lion by Bernard Shaw
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The Origin of Species & The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Thirty Famous One-Act Plays

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Great Classical Myths

Great Ages & Ideas of the Jewish People

Great Tales of Terror & the Supernatural

The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire

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.

Another book set entirely in Gill Sans

Viking jacket.

Viking Press binding.

Viking Press flap.

Limited edition.

Viking Press title page.

Limited edition title page.

Viking Press jacket.

Ulysses has been included in the Best Book Covers of 2013 by the New York Times.