James Joyce Full name James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. (1882 — 1941) A famous Irish novelist. James Joyce is noted for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods in such large works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Ulysses, first published in February 1922, is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature, and has been called ""a demonstration and summation of the entire modernist movement".