Pretty much all of the work on ULYSSES was done while Joyce was living as an expatriate Irishman. Interestingly, quite a lot of that time was spent recording a day in Dublin, his home, from the position of a poet living dangerously close to the tensions of Europe at war. Joyce was able to draw upon his fantastic and detailed memory of the home he loved, but also upon a copy of the “Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” for street listing, business and people. The Thom’s was an almanac of the day. Many of the people and places in Joyce’s novel were real or fictionalized from the real. I figure this might be a good thread to link in photos or period illustrations of some of the real people, actual locations and  historical settings mentioned and appearing in the novel.

This is going to cover a lot of territory and probably some debate. Leave any reviews, suggestions, critics or links in the “comment” section below and, as discussion grows, we’ll move them up as posts in this section. Or, if you’ve got an idea for a review on this theme that you’d like posted here on the site, drop us a line.