Ulysses in America                               17

ceding that he had a bootlegged copy of the book which he had
only glanced at, John B. Watson of J. Walter Thompson replied
on June 3, 1932, that from his cursory examination, "I don't know
whether the fellow is crazy or whether /sic/ I have gone crazy,"
but he promised to pursue the matter further, presumably to sat¬
isfy himself of his own sanity, for, two weeks later, on June 17,
he wrote with an almost audible sigh of relief, "my final point of
view is that the author of Ulysses is crazy and not me."

When his scenario began to work according to plan, Mr. Cerf
could not restrain an expression of triumph: on July 18 he re¬
ported to Paul Leon in Paris, who was handling Joyce's corres¬
pondence, that the "Customs authorities lost no time in seizing
the special copy of Ulysses exactly in accordance with our expec¬
tations and hopes."

But the selection of a presiding judge lay outside the scope of
Random House, though Mr. Ernst early expressed the hope that
the case would be tried before Judge John Munro Woolsey who
was known to be liberal. According to a letter of July 26, from
Mr. Cerf to Paul Leon, the case was postponed three times, the
third time because "the presiding judge flatly refused to read the
book." In the end Judge Woolsey presided, and, in the major cen¬
sorship case in the history of American courts, admitted Ulysses
into the United States. Cablegrams and letters began crossing the
Atlantic, notably one cable sent on December 7, 1933: thanks

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU COLLEAGUES COUNSEL SUCCESSFUL CASE

jA.MEs JOYCE. Within the week Ulysses was being set in type.

This seized copy, the familiar Shakespeare and Company edi¬
tion, with its flexible cardboard cover in the blue and white chosen
by Joyce, is also in the Cerf collection. A band on the cover reads
"i ith Printing, 28th Thousand." Like others I have seen, it has
no date and no imprint, only the name and city of the courageous
printer, Darantiere-Dijon, following the last page of text, but it is
of considerable interest since the District Attorney's office pre¬
pared its case from this copy.