Kevin Birmingham’s THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK,which sold on proposal to Ann Godoff at Penguin Press a few years ago,is set to publish in June 2014.
This erudite highly accessible and engrossing essay tells the remarkable story of the controversy surrounding James Joyce’sUlysses, from the first stirrings of Joyce’s inspiration in 1904 to the landmark federal obscenity trial in 1933. For fifteen years, the book that literary critics now consider the most important novel in the English language faced legal obstacles in every major English-speaking country in the world. In the United States, it was illegal to own, sell, lend, mail or even advertise Joyce’s book for sale.
Literary historian, Harvard ProfessorKevin Birminghamfollows the author’s years as a young writer, his feverish work on his literary masterpiece, and his ardent love affair with Nora Barnacle, the model for Molly Bloom. Birmingham’s thorough research includes work with myriad archives around the world. His empathetic, deeply felt examination of how the world came to say Yes to the greatest novel of the twentieth century is gripping literary history at its best.