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Portrait of the classic as a book banned On Dec. 6, 1933, U.S. District Court Judge John Woolsey made a landmark decision: Ulysses, he wrote, ''may. . .be admitted into the United States.'' He was referring to James Joyce's novel, which had been banned in this country on grounds of obscenity since its publication in Paris in 1921. Until Random House successfully fought the ban, Americans had to buy Ulysses in France — for $10 a copy, wrapped in a plain blue jacket — and smuggle it home in their luggage. This month Vintage is reissuing the original 1934 edition of Ulysses ($14.95), complete with an introduction by Morris Ernst, the lawyer who represented Random House; the text of Judge Woolsey's decision; and a letter Joyce wrote to Random House founder Bennett Cerf thanking him for his efforts.
For Little Bugs Everywhere Houghton Mifflin's biggest fall title is a children's book. Just a Dream, which could be called environmental fiction for the playground set, is the surrealistic tale of a young litterbug named Walter. Written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express, Swan Lake), the book has advance orders of 250,000. Eco-books for kids are clearly hot-witness the success of Earthworks Press' 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth, currently $ No. 8 on the paperback best-seller list.
Channeling Chanel Coco Chanel's extraordinary life, the stuff of several biographies, is now being served up as fiction in Patricia Soliman's Coco: The Novel, published this month by Putnam. ''I realized her life had the makings of an extraordinary bonbon box of a novel,'' Soliman says. Her own af nity for Chanel (below) grew as she wrote. ''It was almost like I was channeling her, towards the end.'' She thinks that Chanel would be thrilled to see herself in a novel. ''She was always refashioning and reinventing herself.'' Soliman, a flamboyant editor turned writer, is already at work on her second book, Garbo: The Novel, and plans to tackle Marilyn Monroe after that.
