Joyce's first book was Dubliners, which was rejected by 15 publishers before...
When the book finally did get printed, that entire edition was burned before reaching the public.
He didn't fare much better with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ulysses was his third book, first published in Paris in serial form because nobody would then take the chance, and when the magazine got to the US...
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which objected to the book's content, took action to attempt to keep the book out of the United States. At a trial in 1921 the magazine was declared obscene and, as a result, Ulysses was effectively banned in the United States.
Here's one of the offending passages that led to the ban:
Ah!
Mr. Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord that little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented perhaps.
Yep, too raunchy for young or old ears! The book went to trial in 1933 ("United States v. One Book Called Ulysses"), and the judge ruled that it was not obscene, concluding that:
[W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.
Go figure...any of it! FWIW, I read all of Joyce's work in college and am still a tad confused by Ulysses and totally lost by Finnegan's Wake. The others are plain-spoken by comparison and great fun to read.
