29 h 57 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 29 h 57 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a day's search for lunch, company and understanding could carry the weight of an ancient epic?
In James Joyce's Ulysses, Dublin comes alive on 16 June 1904. Leopold Bloom, a kind, curious advertising canvasser, makes breakfast and heads into the streets, troubled by loss and his marriage. Stephen Dedalus, a proud young teacher and would-be poet, carries his own grief. At home, Bloom's wife Molly, a singer, has thoughts and plans of her own.
Their ordinary day echoes Homer's Odyssey, but its world is full of pubs, newspapers, funerals and gossip. Joyce brings you close to minds as they wander through jokes, fears and sudden memories. His style changes from episode to episode, asking you to slow down, listen closely and find the epic within daily life.
What you’ll discover
- A city in motion Walk Dublin's streets, where lunchtime hunger, sharp gossip and a funeral share the day.
- Company inside the mind Follow thoughts as they leap between passing impressions, private fears and wandering memories.
- An ordinary epic Discover how Bloom's search for lunch and worries about marriage echo an ancient journey.
- Three distinct inner lives Meet Bloom's curiosity, Stephen's wounded pride and Molly's thoughts within the same Dublin day.
- Language that keeps changing Explore shifting styles that make each episode a fresh encounter with Joyce's restless language.
Who will love it
Readers who love language, jokes, and puzzles will find plenty here, and so will anyone who enjoys a city explored street by street, or an old myth retold through a kind, ordinary man.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- An ordinary day carries an epic
- Stephen feels homeless among friends
- Bloom notices hurt without striking back
- The dead remain close to Bloom
- Stephen searches for himself in Shakespeare
- Bloom answers hatred with ordinary decency
- Family is a pattern of longing
- Changing voices reveal the same city
- Ordinary lives hold room for mercy
Who’s who
- Leopold BloomA kind, curious Dublin advertising canvasser who spends the day wandering the city, grieving a lost son, and trying to avoid thinking about his wife's afternoon visitor.
- Stephen DedalusA young teacher and would-be writer, haunted by his mother's death and refusing to kneel, who wants a freedom he does not yet know how to use.
- Molly BloomBloom's wife, a singer with a concert tour coming, who stays in bed in the morning and keeps her own counsel about the day.
- Buck MulliganA cheerful, mocking medical student who shares the tower with Stephen and treats everything, including grief, as material for a joke.
- Simon DedalusStephen's father, a charming, hard-drinking talker who sings in bars and drifts through Dublin's pubs, funerals, and old stories.
- Blazes BoylanA brash concert manager who passes in his carriage all day and plans to call on Molly at four o'clock.
- Mr DeasyThe proud headmaster who pays Stephen his wages, lectures him about money, and wants a letter about cattle disease printed in the papers.
- The CitizenA loud, patriotic bully in Barney Kiernan's pub who talks of Irish heroes and clashes with Bloom over who belongs to Ireland.
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Ulysses
by James Joyce · 1922
One June day in Dublin, a wandering ad canvasser and a restless young teacher drift toward each other.
Challenging10–20 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What if one ordinary day in one city could hold a whole world? On Thursday, June sixteenth, 1904, Dublin wakes to a mild summer morning.
Ulysses at a glance
- Reading time
- About 18 h 30 min14 h 40 min fast, 22 h slow
- Length
- 264,400 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1922by James Joyce
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A mocking friend and a dead mother
The book opens at eight in the morning on the roof of a Martello tower, an old round fort above Dublin Bay. Buck Mulligan, plump and cheerful, carries a bowl of shaving lather and blesses the landscape like a priest. Stephen, tired and sullen, watches him from the stairhead.
Mulligan holds a cracked mirror up to Stephen's face. Stephen answers that it is the cracked looking glass of a servant, the symbol of Irish art. The remark shows a gifted man who feels like a hired hand in someone else's house. Mulligan also reminds him that he refused to kneel and pray at his mother's deathbed. Later Stephen remembers her in a dream, thin and silent, breathing a smell of wet ashes over him.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1922
- Language
- English
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/ulysses.
Joyce, J. (2026). Ulysses. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ulysses (Original work published 1922)
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ulysses.
@book{joyce2026ulysses,
author = {Joyce, James},
title = {Ulysses},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ulysses},
note = {First published 1922}
}
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What is Ulysses about?
It follows one ordinary day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin. The advertising canvasser Leopold Bloom and the young teacher Stephen Dedalus wander the city, each carrying private grief, and they meet late at night.
What does the title Ulysses mean?
Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey. Joyce echoes that story, so a day in Dublin loosely parallels a long voyage home, with Bloom as wanderer and Stephen as searching son.
Why is it set on June 16, 1904?
Joyce picked the day he first walked out with Nora Barnacle, the woman who became his partner. Readers now celebrate the date as Bloomsday, with readings and walks through the Dublin streets in the book.
The author
James Joyce
1882–1941 · Irish novelist and poet
James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, born in Dublin in 1882. He lived in Trieste, Zurich and Paris after leaving Ireland. He published Dubliners in 1914, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916, and Ulysses in 1922. He died in Zurich in 1941.
More by James Joyce
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