Synopses & Reviews
For the centennial of its original publication, an irresistible Graphic Deluxe Edition of one of the most beloved books of the 20th centuryfeaturing a foreword by Colum McCann, the bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic
Perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English language, James Joyces Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as Araby,” Grace,” and The Dead,” delve into the heart of the city of Joyces birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and most profound, and this edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the authors original wishes.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Review
“A hundred years on . . .
Dubliners has been absorbed into our literary landscape, but in the early part of the twentieth century it was the sort of book that hadnt been seen much before, certainly from an Irish writer, and much of it shocked the conventional literary world. . . . [Joyce] was taking the lived landscape of his childhood and transforming it into something universal. . . . The stories contain some of the most beautiful sentences ever written in English.” —
Colum McCann, from the Foreword
“A handsome deluxe edition.” —The New York Times
“A gorgeous new trade paperback edition [of] arguably the most important single-author short story collection in the English language.” —KQED, “Great Lit Perfect for Summer Reading”
Synopsis
Having done the longest day in literature with his monumental Ulysses, James Joyce set himself even greater challenges for his next book — the night.
"A nocturnal state...That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." The work, which would exhaust two decades of his life and the odd resources of some sixty languages, culminated in the 1939 publication of Joyce's final and most revolutionary masterpiece, Finnegans Wake.
A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantantic dream language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most brilliant inventive work. Sixty years after its original publication, it remains, in Anthony Burgess's words, "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page."
Synopsis
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedaluss Dublin childhood and youth, providing an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive, this coming-of-age story is a tour de force of style and technique.
About the Author
James Joyce (18821941) was an Irish poet and novelist, celebrated as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His works include
Ulysses,
Finnegans Wake, and
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Colum McCann is the author of the National Book Awardwinning novel Let the Great World Spin and, most recently, TransAtlantic. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he now lives in New York City.
Terence Brown is an emeritus fellow of Trinity College Dublin.
Roman Muradov has done illustrations for an array of clients, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, NPR, and Dark Horse Comics. He lives in San Francisco.
Table of Contents
Dubliners Editor's Preface
Chronology
I. The Text
Dubliners:
The Sisters
An Encounter
Araby
Eveline
After the Race
Two Gallants
The Boarding House
A Little Cloud
Counterparts
Clay
A Painful Case
Ivy Day in the Committee Room
A Mother
Grace
The Dead
A Note on the Text
II. The Author and His Work
Facsimile Pages from "A Painful Case"
The Composition and Revision of the Stories
Epiphanies and Epicleti
The Evidence of the Letters
III. Criticism
Editors' Introduction to Criticism Section
FRANK O'CONNOR, Work in Progress
HARRY STONE, "Araby" and the Writings of James Joyce
A. WALTON LITZ, "Two Gallants"
ROBERT SCHOLES, "Counterparts" and the Method of Dubliners
JANE E. MILLER, "'O, she's a nice lady!'": A Rereading of "A Mother"
RICHARD ELLMANN, The Backgrounds of "The Dead"
ALLEN TATE, "The Dead"
KENNETH BURKE, "Stages" in "The Dead"
C. C. LOOMIS, JR., Structure and Sympathy in Joyce's "The Dead"
BRUCE AVERY, Distant Music: Sound and the Dialogics of Satire in "The Dead"
MICHAEL LEVENSON, Living History in "The Dead"
Topics for Discussion and Papers
Selected Bibliography
Notes to the Stories