# Is "Ulysses" by James Joyce a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Ulysses by James Joyce (Shakespeare and Company, 1922) is identified by: Edition limited to 1,000 copies on three papers: nos. The Paris Shakespeare and Company edition of 2 February 1922 is the true first; nos.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Edition limited to 1,000 copies on three papers: nos
- 1-100 on Dutch handmade paper SIGNED by Joyce; nos
- 101-250 on vergé d'Arches; nos
- 251-1,000 on handmade paper
- Blue printed wrappers with white lettering ('Ulysses by James Joyce'), printed by Maurice Darantiere at Dijon
- The first printing contains the printer's errata leaf and the famous textual errors of the Darantiere setting
- Publisher imprint reads Shakespeare and Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | James Joyce |
| Publisher | Shakespeare and Company |
| Year | 1922 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Edition limited to 1,000 copies on three papers: nos |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Edition limited to 1,000 copies on three papers: nos. 1-100 on Dutch handmade paper SIGNED by Joyce; nos. 101-250 on vergé d'Arches; nos. 251-1,000 on handmade paper. Blue printed wrappers with white lettering ('Ulysses by James Joyce'), printed by Maurice Darantiere at Dijon. The first printing contains the printer's errata leaf and the famous textual errors of the Darantiere setting.

## Is this the true first?
The Paris Shakespeare and Company edition of 2 February 1922 is the true first; nos. 1-100 (Dutch handmade paper, signed by Joyce) are the apex. The Egoist Press (London) issue of October 1922 was the SECOND printing — 2,000 copies numbered from 1001, run off from the same Darantiere setting, of which some 500 were seized by US authorities; the January 1923 Egoist third printing (500 copies) was largely burned by English customs at Folkestone. None of these later printings is the true first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Odyssey Press (1932, the first corrected continental text) and Random House (1934, first authorized US edition) are later editions; any copy not in the Darantiere blue Paris wrappers with the stated three-paper limitation is not the 1922 Shakespeare and Company first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Ulysses* by James Joyce a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/ulysses
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.