For Joyce, literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'. Written between 1914 and 1921, Ulysses has survived bowderlization, legal action and bitter controversy. An undisputed modernist classic, its ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishingly wide-ranging allusions confirm its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. Declan Kiberd says in his introduction that Ulysses is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies. It holds a mirror up to the colonial capital that was Dublin on 16 June 1904, but it also offers redemptive glimpses of a future world which might be made over in terms of those utopian moments.'

This edition is the standard Random House/Bodley Head text that first appeared in 1960.

This Annotated Student's Edition has full explanatory notes which use the internationally recognized system of line numbers for critical reference.

詹姆斯·乔伊斯（James Joyce, 1882-1941）是20世纪西方富有独创性和影响很大的作家。生于爱尔兰首都都柏林。他一生颠沛流离，辗转于的里雅斯特、罗马、巴黎等地，多以教授英语和为报刊撰稿糊口，又饱受眼疾折磨，到晚年几乎完全失明；但他对文学矢志不渝，勤奋写作，终成一代巨匠。《尤利西斯》是他的代表作。