Ulysses, by Irish novelist James Joyce, was published in 1922. Many consider it one of the finest examples of literary modernism – a movement experimenting with literary form and expression. Joyce, greatly influenced by the work of Homer, applied a Homeristic structure to his novel. He felt that Greek literature had greatly influenced his career and wanted the cover of his latest work to reflect the blue found in the flag of Greece. Joyce rejected many blue paper samples suggested by his publisher – the shades were never accurate enough. In a last-ditch effort to identify the exact colour, he sent an artist friend, Myron C. Nutting, a Greek flag hanging in the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company. The book’s printer used Nutting’s recommendation to replicate the blue on the novel’s cover.
You will notice a difference when you compare the colour of the book to that of the flag – one is a warm blue, the other cooler. My guess is the flag from the bookstore had lost some of its red pigment to sunlight exposure, turning it into more of a warm, turquoise blue. Joyce, unwittingly, settling on a colour that was not true to the official Greek flag. Nonetheless, it makes for a handsome book. A copy of the first edition of Ulysses (1000 copies), with its famous blue wrap and elegant typography, is highly desired by book collectors.
