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The Ulysses Guide: Tours Through Joyce's Dublin
Book by Robert Nicholson
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 16, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 13, 2016
A nicely detailed guide, though it could have stood more intertour planning. Also, QR codes might have served very well here. I appreciated the heads-ups regarding locations from Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as Young Man. Read prior to and during a day spent reenacting (ugh) Ulysses in Dublin, something I heartily recommend to all Joyce fans with the means.
October 20, 2025
What a great companion book to use on a visit to Dublin! Made up of eight tours, The Ulysses Guide provides a number of maps and routes to trace the footsteps of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus on June 16, 1904.
Robert Nicholson doesn’t give you the order of the characters in his tour, perse, but he situates the tour in the most practical order for completing in one day and avoiding doubling back. He admits the changing city, and points out places that no longer exist and have been replaced.
Conveniently, he also provides maps and accompanying text with step by step instructions for each leg of the tour. Perhaps what makes this book so great is that Nicholson also provides the chapter context for each tour, putting you back in the book with quotes, themes, motivations, and thoughts of each character — helpful even when only several months removed from finishing Ulysses.
And also very convenient: The Appendix has a chronological timeline with time stamps and locations of both characters. If you’re to walk Bloomsday, this book is a must read.
Robert Nicholson doesn’t give you the order of the characters in his tour, perse, but he situates the tour in the most practical order for completing in one day and avoiding doubling back. He admits the changing city, and points out places that no longer exist and have been replaced.
Conveniently, he also provides maps and accompanying text with step by step instructions for each leg of the tour. Perhaps what makes this book so great is that Nicholson also provides the chapter context for each tour, putting you back in the book with quotes, themes, motivations, and thoughts of each character — helpful even when only several months removed from finishing Ulysses.
And also very convenient: The Appendix has a chronological timeline with time stamps and locations of both characters. If you’re to walk Bloomsday, this book is a must read.
July 12, 2021
Не знаю, зачем я читала эту книгу не находясь в Дублине. Утопла в названиях улиц, зданиях, монументах.. Но 5 звёзд за качество материала.
June 5, 2025
so poorly thought through and formatted as to be almost useless
April 8, 2010
I was a bit daunted by this book at first, but when I finally sat down to read it it was a breeze. The idea of reading a tour book doesn't appeal to me, but this paraphrases and discusses the events of "Ulysses" in addition to its practical advice for getting around the city, and is loaded with tidbits about Dublin both of Joycean and general interest. Nicholson is extremely in-depth, discussing the city so thoroughly even my dorm gets a mention:
"[Bloom:] turns right onto Brunswick Street, where the wall covered with hoardings has been replaced by a large student accommodation block (connected to the Trinity College campus by its own footbridge across Westland Row)." (p. 70) There's something very cool about reading about the environment you live in, a pleasure I've never had considering this is my first time in a city. So far no one's written a modernist novel about a day in East Longmeadow, Manchester, or Amherst.
Nicholson includes pictures from the National Photo Archives, so you get a good visual of Joyce's Dublin in 1904. As inclusive as it was, I feel Nicholson's holding out, and had much more cool facts to share than he actually did, and I would've preferred a bulkier appendix beyond brief explanation of the journey of the corrected text, a timetable of the characters' movements, and a bibliography.
Overall, worth reading if you have even a peripheral interest in "Ulysses", and is short so why the heck not?
"[Bloom:] turns right onto Brunswick Street, where the wall covered with hoardings has been replaced by a large student accommodation block (connected to the Trinity College campus by its own footbridge across Westland Row)." (p. 70) There's something very cool about reading about the environment you live in, a pleasure I've never had considering this is my first time in a city. So far no one's written a modernist novel about a day in East Longmeadow, Manchester, or Amherst.
Nicholson includes pictures from the National Photo Archives, so you get a good visual of Joyce's Dublin in 1904. As inclusive as it was, I feel Nicholson's holding out, and had much more cool facts to share than he actually did, and I would've preferred a bulkier appendix beyond brief explanation of the journey of the corrected text, a timetable of the characters' movements, and a bibliography.
Overall, worth reading if you have even a peripheral interest in "Ulysses", and is short so why the heck not?
June 21, 2011
This was the quintessential guide through Joyce's Dublin when I studied abroad there, studying Ulyssses. I had the honor to meet Mr. Nicholson and walked with him and fellow students around Dublin, following the footsteps of Bloom. Mr. Nicholson is the ultimate Joycean scholar and a wonderful man.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews