 Written over a seven-year period from 1914 to 1921, the novel was serialised in the American journal "The Little Review" from 1918 to 1920, when the publication of the "Nausicaä" episode led to a prosecution for obscenity under the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it illegal to circulate materials deemed obscene in the U.S. mail.In 1919, sections of the novel also appeared in the London literary journal "The Egoist", but the novel itself was banned in the United Kingdom until 1936.Joyce had resolved that the book would be published on his 40th birthday, 2 February 1922, and Sylvia Beach, Joyce's publisher in Paris, received the first three copies from the printer that morning.