Ulysses

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

The present reprint of the critically edited reading text of UlyssesЧfirst published as the so-called СCorrected TextТ in 1986Чstands corrected, as it must, in two readings: СBullerТ at 5.560 and СThriftТ at 10.1259. This is the net outcome of the massive onslaught on the critical editing of Ulysses in the New York Review of Books of 30 June 1988 and elsewhere. Beyond that, the scholarly debate (where it takes and accepts the Critical and Synoptic Edition of 1984 on its own terms) leads, or would lead, to very few changes indeed to the reading text. The procedures of establishing that text, which is the text as it appears realized in this reprint, are grounded and documented in the apparatus of the critical edition. A textual modification in the present reprint alone would be without such a foundation, and no editorial changes have therefore been made.

The alterations I felt inclined towards, but did not introduce, are the following:

at 1.562, for СWeТre always tiredТ read СIТm always tiredТ

(as by JoyceТs instruction in an unpublished letter cited in Antony HammondТs review in The Library, 6th ser., 8 [1986], p. 387)

at 16.1804-1805, for the phrasing Сwas not quite the same as the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering afterТ read Сwas not quite the same as the usual blackguard type they unquestionably had an indubitable hankering afterТ

(an alternative editorial response to a complicated interrelationship of stages of the textТs development where John KiddТs discussion in the New York Review of Books has suggested that the edition momentarily failed to observe its stated rules of procedure)

at 17.314-315, for СMr BloomТ read СMrs BloomТ

(an emendation which, according to David HaymanТs conjecture in Sandulescu Hart, Assessing the 1984 СUlyssesТ [1986], the context demands, though Joyce never made the change)

As a whole, this critically edited text of Ulysses stands, and remains standing, as the result of its considered premises and reasoned scholarly procedures.

Hans Walter Gabler

August 1993