Which 1933 U.S. court case lifted the ban on James Joyce's 'Ulysses'?

The 1933 case that lifted the U.S. ban on James Joyce’s Ulysses was United States v. One Book Called Ulysses. Judge John M. Woolsey of the Southern District of New York ruled that the novel was not legally obscene and could be imported into the country.

The case arose after Random House deliberately arranged for a French edition to be seized by U.S. Customs in 1932. The publisher wanted a test case that would establish whether Joyce’s controversial novel could legally be published in America. Woolsey examined the work as a whole rather than judging isolated passages, including its sexual material and stream-of-consciousness narration.

Woolsey’s decision was issued on December 6, 1933, and the Second Circuit affirmed it in 1934 in a case with a slightly different title: United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce. That appellate ruling is an important reason the case is sometimes remembered under two names. The decision helped establish that serious literary works should not be judged obscene solely because they contain offensive language or sexual subjects.