Additional information
by James Joyce (Author), Brenda Maddox (Introduction by)
James Joyce has been hailed as one of the great literary rebels of our time. He rebelled against social and literary conventions, against Catholicism, and against Dublin, the city at the center of this magnificent collection of stories.
In Dubliners, Joyce paints vivid portraits of the denizens of the city of his birth, from the young boy encountering death in the fist story, "The Sisters," to the middle-aged Gabriel of the haunting final story, "The Dead." This collection is both unflinchingly realistic portrait of "dear dirty Dublin" and, as Joyce himself explained, a window through which his countrymen could get "one good look at themselves."Front Jacket
Don't you think there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do?...To give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own.
-- James Joyce, in a letter to his brother
With these fifteen stories James Joyce reinvented the art of fiction, using a scrupulous, deadpan realism to convey truths that were at once blasphemous and sacramental. Whether writing about the death of a fallen priest ("The Sisters"), the petty sexual and fiscal machinations of "Two Gallants," or of the Christmas party at which an uprooted intellectual discovers just how little he really knows about his wife ("The Dead"), Joyce takes narrative places it had never been before.
The text of this edition has been newly edited by Hans Walter Gabler and Walter Hettche and is followed by a new afterword, chronology, and bibliography by John S. Kelly. Also included in a special appendix are the original versions of three stories as well as Joyce's long-suppressed Preface to Dubliners.
"From the Trade Paperback edition.
Author Biography
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