Ulysses

Banned in the United States until 1934 on account of its "pornographic" content, this controversial classic transforms a single day in Dublin into an experimental epic. James Joyce's psychological novel vividly re-creates the sights, sounds, smells, and voices of a June day in 1904 within a structure loosely based on Homer's Odyssey. Famed for the stream-of-consciousness technique that marked the beginning of modernist literature, the tale abounds in parodies, riddles, and sparkling wordplay. The long shadow it casts over subsequent novels has raised the suggestion that English-language fiction since 1922 has been a series of footnotes to Joyce's masterpiece.