JOYCE, James. Ulysses. Illustrated by Henri Matisse.

Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1999. Quarto. pp. v, 732. Full sea-green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt; moiré-silk endpapers, cream and green endbands, gold silk marker. All edges gilt. A fine copy.
In a 1920 letter Joyce gives some idea of what he’s attempting in Ulysses. It is an epic “of the human body as well as the little story of a day (life). The character of Ulysses has fascinated me since boyhood. I started writing a short story for ‘Dubliners’ fifteen years ago but gave it up. For seven years I’ve been working at this book - blast it! It is also a sort of encyclopaedia. My intention is not only to render the myth [of Odysseus-Ulysses] sub specie temporis nostri [from the standpoint of our age], but also to allow each adventure (that is, every hour, every organ, every art being connected and interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to condition and even to create its own techniques”.