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She Couldn't Read it Consecutively

imageEve Arnold, Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses, 1955. imageFrom a letter dated 20 July 1993 from Eve Arnold to Richard Brown1

Monroe is reading the 1934 Random House edition, with the dust jacket removed. This is the edition that was famously set from a pirate version containing numerous errors. This defect notwithstanding, the dust-jacket artwork and typographic design by Ernst Reichl constitute one of the great works in the history of book design. imageimage

Unfortunately, Random House seems to be oblivious to this fact—in their 2002 hardcover reprint, they reproduced the artwork and design without crediting Reichl2.

  1. Quoted in Richard Brown, “Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses: Goddess or Postcultural Cyborg?”, in R. B. Kershner (Ed), Joyce and Popular Culture, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1996, p. 174. ↩

  2. Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger, By its Cover, Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, 2005, p. 16. ↩