Yes because there are lit nerds in the world. Remember the vast majority of the bookstore is aimed at a target market of under a million, that’s in a nation of 311 million, often times you’re looking at a target of closer to a quarter million. Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are taught in college, and I think they’re in public domain, and remember there’s that small target. You’re lucky, my first encounter with Joyce was sophomore year in high school. Just awful.
Joyce’s prose ain’t spare. Joyce is long winded, he’s the 27 word guy. The REAL alternative is to teach kids books they might actually like. Let them get to the classics on their own, when they’re old enough. If they get into reading they’ll get a favorite writer or two, and eventually they’ll read an interview with them where they say they were influenced by Joyce, and they’ll pick one up. Almost every book I’ve ever voluntarily read that was more than 50 years old was because an author I liked referenced it.
Yes Dickens is translated into many languages. But again, target market. Being read by an insignificant percentage of people in many countries is not “massive popular appeal”, it’s being in the public domain so what little money does come in from those sales doesn’t have to be spread far. Also Dickens is pretty good stuff so the handful of people who do read him will enjoy it (thankfully I never had him shoved down my throat in school, all voluntary). If he was massively popular Hollywood would be ripping him off a lot more than they are, and they’d include his name in the movie title.
Well adults who read fiction are a minority to begin with. Especially males. So I’m talking about people who actually do read. Dickens is probably read by more people worldwide then anyone on the Best Seller list right now. And IMDB has 4 productions based on his work dated at 2012.
Joyce entered the public domain just recently...
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1231/1224309673276.html
Ulysses and FW would not be read unless it’s a class devoted to Joyce - which college students would take as an elective (willingly).