The Little Review: A Magazine of the Arts, vol. 5, no. 11

James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published in the United States in serialized form by The Little Review, a literary magazine published in New York City by Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap. Following the publication of the “Nausicaa” episode of Ulysses in the April 1920 issue, Anderson and Heap were arrested and charged with obscenity. John Quinn, a lawyer and art collector who knew Joyce personally and admired his work, represented the publishers at their subsequent trial. A panel of three judges deemed the text to be obscene, resulting in a fine of $100 and an order to discontinue publication of the novel. One of the judges opined that Joyce’s fiction sounded “like the ravings of a disordered mind—I can’t see why anyone would want to publish it.”