James Joyce’s Ulysses has 18 episodes, commonly described in quiz contexts as 18 chapters. Joyce’s structure divides the novel into three books, with the episodes broadly paralleling the 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey.
The novel follows Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus through Dublin on June 16, 1904. Its 18-part design moves through highly varied styles, including newspaper parody, dramatic script, catechism, musical patterns, and stream of consciousness. The final episode, “Penelope,” presents Molly Bloom’s extended interior monologue.
There is a small terminology trap behind this question: Joyce’s text does not formally print episode titles or conventional chapter headings. The familiar Homeric names—such as “Telemachus,” “Calypso,” and “Ithaca”—come from reading schemes associated with scholars and Joyce’s correspondence. Nevertheless, the work’s canonical structural count is 18 episodes, making 18 the fair quiz answer.