James Joyce's ULYSSES
Editorial · Book cover
Cover for James Joyce’s Ulysses, a classic of the world literature. The illustration is based on an extract of the chapter 17 of the book. This fragment describes the objects inside a drawer of the Leopold Bloom’s study.
What did the first drawer unlocked contain?
A Vere Foster’s handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent) Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked Papli, which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot (1); 2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England (2) and of Maud Branscombe, actress and professional beauty (3); a Yuletide card, bearing on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah, the date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M. Comerford […](4); a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the stores department of Messrs Hely’s, Ltd., […] (5); a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt ‘J’ pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm (6); […] a sealed prophecy (never unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone’s Home Rule bill of 1886 […] (7); a bazaar ticket, no 2004, of S. Kevin’s Charity Fair, price 6d, 100 prizes (8); an infantile epistle, dated, small em monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature with flourishes capital em Milly no stop (9); a cameo brooch, property of Ellen Bloom (born Higgins), deceased (10); […] 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. Dolphin’s Barn […] (11); a press cutting from an English weekly periodical Modern Society, subject corporal chastisement in girls’ schools […] (12); a pink ribbon which had festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899 (13); two partly uncoiled rubber preservatives with reserve pockets […] (14); 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid envelopes (15) and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3 (16); some assorted Austrian- Hungarian coins (17); […] a lowpower magnifying glass (18); 2 erotic photocards showing a) buccal coition between nude señorita […] and nude torero (19) […] b) anal violation by male religious […] of female religious (20) […]; a press cutting of recipe for renovation of old tan boots (21); a Id adhesive stamp, lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria (22); a chart of the measurements of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months’ consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley’s pulley exerciser (men’s 15/-, athlete’s 20/-) […] (23); 1 prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world’s greatest remedy for rectal complaints (24) […] with brief accompanying note commencing (25) […]
What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects?
A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.) from Martha Clifford (find M. C.). (26)
James Joyce Ulysses
Chapter 17