James Joyce's Dublin: A Topographical Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses

Contemporary Review, Nov, 2004

James Joyce's Dublin: A Topographical Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses. Ian Gun with Clive Hart and Harald Beck. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]28.00. 160 pages. ISBN 0-500-51159-4. This guide was first published in 1975 and reprinted in 1981. It remains one of the most unusual, complete and beautifully illustrated guides (121 illustrations) to any author's work and the world in which it was set.

Dublin has, for better or for worse, changed a great deal in the twenty-nine years since the first publication and these changes have been taken in account in this new edition. The authors have given increased attention to what they call 'parallelisms and simultaneities' or 'who is where when everyone else is some otherwhere'. The maps have been improved and updated, errors have been corrected and 'some aspects of the [novel's] action' have been rethought. The authors have also given a new format to the timetable for the novel's action originally devised by Clive Hart and David Hayman in 1974.