Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses

by Don Gifford, Robert J. Seidman

Don Gifford's annotations to Joyce's great modern classic comprise a specialized encyclopedia that will inform any reading of Ulysses. The suggestive potential of minor details was enormously fascinating to Joyce, and the precision of his use of detail is a most important aspect of his literary method. The annotations in this volume illuminate details which are not in the public realm for most of us.

Genres: Classics

1390 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 15, 2022

Reviews

[Matt Glaviano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gifford is thorough as hell.

Might offer access to too much information for a first time reader (which I was). As I got further into the novel I consulted this book less and enjoyed the reading experience more. This book is great, but there's so much here that I think it interrupted the flow of reading too much.

Still - so many cultural references in Ulysses. So many songs and the whole of Irish political history. So many languages and so many allusions. Gifford offers important access to all of this information.

So. Much. Information.

[Dominic H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had reason to refer to a couple of sections in Ulysses the other day and in doing so also reached out for my copy of Gifford. What a formidable work of reference this is. Formidable not just because of the unimaginable amount of knowledge and hard labour which must have gone into it but also I think there is a danger if you were to try and read Ulysses and refer to this as you went there's a good chance you might not finish either book! Heretical possibly, but I find it most useful (obviously) as a source for individual quotations or references or more controversially to read through once an entire Episode in Ulysses is completed - so effectively let Joyce and then Gifford wash over you!

[Chuck LoPresti · Rating 4 out of 5]

He knows everything you need to know - an absolute wealth of knowledge. Worth the price alone for the section on rhetorical devices. You can read Ulysses without this - and the Hastings book is probably more helpful in terms of understanding the whole experience - but if you'd like to know which 19th-C folk song Joyce is on about - you'll need this. If you're picturing Chico holding a stack of books to sell at the race track - we will understand each other just fine.

[Jgravander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a must-read companion to Ulysses. You can't understand anything in that book without it.