Written over a seven-year period, from 1914 to 1921, this novel deals with the events of one day in Dublin, 16th June 1904, known as "Bloomsday". It features characters such as Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly.

James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882, but exiled himself to Paris at twenty as a rebellion against his upbringing. He only returned to Ireland briefly from the Continent but Dublin was at heart of his greatest works, Ulysees and Finnegans Wake. He lived in poverty until the last ten years of his life and was plagued by near blindness and the grief of his daughter's insanity. He died in 1941.