Searchable Texts of Ulysses (1922)
The first complete edition of Ulysses was published by Shakespeare & Co. (Sylvia Beach), Paris, in 1922. As both the U.K. and U.S. postal and customs authorities considered the novel obscene and unfit for publication, it was printed in France. This edition is now in the public domain and there are many searchable electronic versions available for download at no cost.
Scanned Shakespeare & Co. Edition
Cover of Shakespeare & Co. Edition
Digital version of the Shakespeare & Co. edition created by the Internet Archive. Note that this 30.1 mb pdf file is indexed (searchable). Click on the above link and the file will open in a new browser window.
These tables are a revision of 'Ulysses' Pagefinder, A Pagination Guide for 'Ulysses' Readers by Ian Gunn and Alistair McCleery (Edinburgh: Split Pea Press, 1988). The tables are in a 229kb pdf file titled Ulysses tables on Ian Gunn's website, Joyce Tools. Click on the above link and the file will open in a new browser window.
This table, in a Microsoft Excel file, is based on data in the Split Pea Press conversion tables. Click on the above link to download the Excel file from Major Tweedy's Neighborhood. To prevent accidental reformatting the worksheet is locked; however, it is not password protected. The file is 132 kb in size.
Transcribed Shakespeare & Co. Edition
The Project Gutenberg transcribed version of Ulysses is probably the most widely used and is revised regularly (corrected). Project Gutenberg has multiple formats for the novel though the most reliable for searching is probably the plain vanilla ASCII text version. Note that this version does not have the sheet music graphics.
If you click on the above link the file selection page will open in a new browser window. To download a clean ASCII text version click on "Plain Text UTF-8," then when the document appears select all text, copy it to the Windows clipboard, then paste the clipboard content into a blank MS-Word document or any blank text document. The text file is 1.5 mb in size.
"This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook."
This is the Project Gutenberg ASCII text version reformatted by F.F. Simulations, Inc. with line numbers that closely match those of the Gabler edition. In this Microsoft Word file, the text has headers on each page that identify the episode name and number. To prevent accidental reformatting (the lines are auto-numbered) the document is read-only; however, you may make it editable without a password. Click on the link above to download the file from Major Tweedy's Neighborhood. Lines that are "anchored" to the Gabler edition are highlighted (exact match). The file is 812 kb in size.
Using the Gabler Linefinders
Ex.: If you search for "apjohn" Bloom's childhood friend who died in South Africa during the Boer War, you will find six occurrences of that word. The following table shows the estimated Gabler line numbers using the reformatted Gutenberg edition and the table for the scanned Shakespeare and Co. printed edition. Note that for this example the reformatted edition is more accurate than the table for the scanned version.
Reformatted Text | Gabler | Scanned | ||||
Episode | Line No. | Episode: Line No. | Page No. | Position | Line No. | |
8 | 405 | 8: 404 | 154 | 3/4 down | 400 | |
15 | 3327 | 15:3328 | 512 | mid-page | 3323 | |
17 | 50 | 17: 51 | 620 | 2/3 down | 50 | |
17 | 1252 | 17:1252 | 657 | mid-page | 1251 | |
17 | 1635 | 17:1635 | 669 | top | 1636 | |
17 | 2317 | 17:2317 | 688 | bottom | 2316 | |
The copyright holders of the Gabler edition licensed the James Joyce Digital Archive to provide free access to Ulysses, A Digital Critical and Synoptic Edition, prepared by Hans Walter Gabler, Wolfhard Steppe, and Claus Melchior. This digital version was created by Ronan Crowley and Joshua Schauble from the printed Gabler edition and is complete with line numbers. Each episode appears on a separate webpage. Click on the above link for the contents page of Ulysses Digital Edition. Click on the icon to the right for the home page of the James Joyce Digital Archive. Webpages will open in a new browser window.
At the top left of the contents webpage, open the "Select Episode" dropdown box to bring up that episode's webpage.
Use your browser's "find" function to search for text in individual episodes.
