James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ellmann) was published in 1959 (a revised edition was released in 1982). It is widely accepted as a masterpiece of literary biography. Anthony Burgess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess) was so impressed with the biographer’s work that he claimed it to be ‘the greatest literary biography of the century’. The levels of research that went into its compilation are awesome and the result is a volume which greatly informs an understanding of this author’s complex works. Frankly, this is a book for the devotee. If you are a Joyce fan it is indispensible.
Follow up an interest in Joyce by reaching for the 2 volumes of James Joyce: The Critical Heritage (1970, http://www.amazon.co.uk/James-Critical-Heritage-Robert-Deming/dp/071006747X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1387101882&sr=8-2&keywords=joyce+critical+heritage) by Robert H. Deming.
Also don’t miss The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce (2004, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Companion-James-Companions-Literature/dp/0521837103/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1387102360&sr=8-47) edited by Derek Attridge, a collection of essays and extensive bibliographies which will open up a whole world of Joyce scholarship for your enjoyment.
Before embracing the task of digesting this 906 page biography, you could take a breather by listening to the BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ 43 minute episode on Joyce’s Ulysses. Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jrldv With Steven Connor – Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck, University of London; Jeri Johnson – Senior Fellow in English at Exeter College, Oxford; and Richard Brown – Reader in Modern English Literature at the University of Leeds. Chaired by Melvyn Bragg. First broadcast Thursday 14 Jun 2012.
906 pages in Oxford paperback edition
ISBN 978-0195033816
James Joyce Richard Ellmann