First rate: where expository prose is concerned, Mr. Birmingham has talent and style to spare. He renders lucidly and accessibly the complicated history and ideas that inform and animate Ulysses, as well as the byzantine history of its publication, while respecting his readers' intelligence. If the topic interests you, I'm hard pressed to think of a better book about it.

"Ulysses" is regarded as genius, smut, babble, brilliance, and blasphemy. The ramblings of a sick mind, and the redefining of what a novel can be.

"The Most Dangerous Book" is much more than the story of the controversies that surrounded Joyce's seminal novel. Aside from the attempts to censor the book in America and Europe, Birmingham also does a remarkable job of capturing the story of Joyce's personal and writing life from his youngest days in Dublin to his adult life abroad. For me, the most intriguing aspects of the book were how The Comstock Law affected "Ulysses" here in the States, the polarizing reaction Joyce's writing received from other popular writers of his era, the unlikely allies who fiercely supported Joyce (artistically and financially), and Joyce's horrific vision issues, which led to medieval attempts to ease his suffering and stave off blindness. Birmingham also does a fine job explaining Joyce's earlier works in context to the culture and the times.

I'm just now starting "Ulysses". I'm a chapter or two in, and from what I'm told, I'll hit some roadblocks that rival the Great Wall of China. However, now I have a greater appreciation for Joyce's journey to write and publish his novel, and am better prepared for the surreal, profane ride ahead of me.

This is the story of a book, the audacious man who wrote it, and the decades of furor it created. Well-researched, filled with humor, and a solid, accessible bridge to the world of Joyce. ( )

The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham is the book about the book. Kevin Birmingham received his Ph.D. in English from Harvard, where he is a lecturer in History & Literature and an instructor in the university’s writing program.

I am old enough to remember the Larry Flynt obscenity trial and remember hearing it compared to "Howl". At the time I figured Flynt must be doing something absolutely vile because, it was the bicentennial year and America stood for freedom. There had to be a very good reason for a book to be banned in America. Joyce more closely resembles Ginsberg than Flynt, but the idea of censorship and proclaiming books as obscene is unheard of in today’s America. Most young adults would be hard pressed to name a censored or banned book. Groups express outrage and burn books ranging from about Harry Potter to the Koran. Politicians expressed their outrage over the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Karen Finley. However, you can buy just about any book or get any book you want. At the beginning of the twentieth century things were quite a bit different.

I read Ulysses prior to reading Birmingham’s history. I found myself chuckling at some of the cracks both about sex, bodily functions, and religion. However, most of the book was pretty much what was expected in a modernist novel. One hundred years makes a huge difference in what is considered obscene.

Joyce could not his book published. Publishers turned the book down. Virginia Woolf’s small press also rejected the book. Woolf did not like the book, but rejected it on the grounds that it was much too big of a project for her small press. The portions she read, according to several scholars, did influence her writing Mrs. Dalloway.

Ulysses did get published by a small bookstore in Paris run by the American Sylvia Beach exporting the book remained a problem. The surprising part was how America handled the book. The Comstock Act prevented any obscene material (and contraception information) to be sent through the postal system. Although today, the reader may not see the post office as a law enforcement agency, but at the time only the post office covered the entire country down to every street. There was no FBI at the time. The Sedition Act of 1917 gave the federal government power and forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. The Sedition Act stayed in effect until the end of 1920; two years after WWI ended.

The Most Dangerous Book not only describes the difficulty of getting Ulysses published, but brings all the participants in the effort: Joyce, his family, Comstock, The Little Review, Margaret Anderson, Ezra Pound, and players on both sides of the censorship issue in the United States. The book also gives an in-depth look at censorship in America, which is usually stifled in American history. This is an extremely well done book with extensive documentation. It is a history that covers more than the attempts to publish a book. Reading the novel, Ulysses, is not necessary before reading The Most Dangerous Book. Aspects of the novel are covered in the book. Very highly recommended to history readers and for fans of James Joyce. An outstanding read. ( )

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I am vaguely familiar with Joyce and Ulysses; I must say I had not appreciated just how strong the censorship regimes were in both the UK and the USA at the turn of the century, and the extent to which literary innovation was tied into political radicalism - The Little Review, which initially serialised Ulysses in America, was closely linked to Emma Goldman and generally sympathetic to anarchism. I also hadn't realised the crucial role of Ulysses in the origins of Random House. It's a fascinating story, well told.

Joyce himself comes across as a demanding, self-centred individual, constantly needing financial subvention from (mostly female) donors, his body riddled by venereal disease, driving his family mad. But there's something about his prose that catches your soul, and while there are parts of Ulysses that miss the mark, there are parts that very much hit it. Birmingham makes the very strong case that censorship was wrong and unjustifiable in principle, but the fact that it was being used against a work as hefty (in many ways) as Ulysses made the case for continued censorship weaker (though not in Ireland, where Ulysses was never formally tested but there was a tough regime for censorship of books from 1929 to 1967,, parts lasting until 1998). ( )

Really interesting book on the writing and publishing of Ulysses, and also functions as a biography of James Joyce. Mostly it's the story of censorship and the growth of the First Amendment into what we understand it to be today, and how changes in writing and literature precipitated the legal changes. I read it slowly over several months and really didn't want it to end. ( )