Dubliners

Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur theologians, struggling musicians, moony adolescents, victims of domestic brutishness, sentimental aunts and poets, patriots earnest or cynical, and people striving to get by. In every sense an international figure, Joyce was faithful to his own country by seeing it unflinchingly and challenging every precedent and piety in Irish literature.

'Truly exhilarating...a vivid, detailed and breathtaking portrait of a city and its citizens' Irish Times In this powerfully influential series of short stories, James Joyce captures uneasy souls, shabby lives and innocent minds in the dark streets and homes of his native city. In doing so, he conjures uncertainties and desires, illumines moments of joy and sorrow otherwise lost in private memory, and pierces the many mysteries at the heart of things.

'Snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.' From a child grappling with the death of a fallen priest, to a young woman's dilemma over whether to elope to Argentina with her lover, to the dance party at which a man discovers just how little he really knows about his wife, these fifteen stories bring the gritty realism of existence in Joyce's native Dublin to life.

On the bleak streets of Dublin, a young boy grieves over the death of an irreligious priest, a woman elopes with her lover, and a professor considers the nature of death: these are some of the unfortunate denizens of James Joyce's imagination. This powerful collection of short stories from one of Ireland's greatest writers includes such brilliant tales as 'Araby', 'The Sisters' and 'The Dead'. Gracefully written and born of deeply personal experiences, the stories in this collection are often bleak and troubling. Together they provide an unflinching portrait of the city, as Joyce lays out the brutal realities of Irish life on the eve of independence. A controversial and genre-defying depiction of the everyday, Dubliners is an essential read from one of Ireland's most celebrated literary figures.

Perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English language, James Joyce's Dubliners is both a vivid and unflinching portrait of "dear dirty Dublin" at the turn of the twentieth century and a moral history of a nation and a people whose "golden age" has passed. His richly drawn characters-at once intensely Irish and utterly universal-may forever haunt the reader. In mesmerizing writing rich with evocative imagery, Joyce delves into the heart of the city of his birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners' speech and portraying with remarkable realism their outer and inner lives. This magnificent collection of fifteen stories, including such touchstones as "Araby," "Grace," and "The Dead," and in the definitive text authorized by the Joyce estate-collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions of Dubliners to reflect the author's wishes-reveals Joyce at his most accessible and most profound. Featuring a new introduction by acclaimed writer Colum McCann and the stunning cover art and sumptuous packaging that are the hallmarks of the Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe series, this edition of Dubliners is worthy of the centennial of one of the twentieth century's most important books.

Although ranging considerably in tone, mood and milieu, the fifteen short stories included in this collection all centre around the city of Dublin and its inhabitants at the beginning of the twentieth century. From the unsettling adventure of two truant schoolboys to the crafty schemes of two con men, from a young woman’s refusal to abandon Ireland and elope with a sailor to a man’s moment of clarity during an annual dance party, these stories offer a moving portrait of an entire world and era which are about to disappear. James Joyce’s first published book, which he wrote when he was still in his twenties, Dubliners is far removed from the bold experimentalism of his later work, but is essential for the understanding of the author’s development as a writer and endures as a masterly example of the short-story form.

'There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.' From a child coming to terms with the death of a priest to a young woman torn between leading an uneventful life in Dublin and fleeing Ireland with her lover, these fifteen stories bring to life the day-to-day existence of ordinary Dubliners in the early years of the twentieth century. With brutal realism, Joyce lays bare the struggles and desires of the Irish middle classes in a compelling and unique exploration of human experience. Completed in 1905, Dubliners was published nine years later, thanks to the author's persistence. It was the first of Joyce's novels to portray his home city, and is a seminal work by one of the most influential authors of the modern era.

First published in 1914, Dubliners depicts middle-class Catholic life in Dublin at the start of the twentieth century. Themes within the stories include the disappointments of childhood, the frustrations of adolescence, and the importance of sexual awakening. James Joyce was twenty-five years old when he wrote this collection of short stories, among which 'The Dead' is probably the most famous. Considered at the time as a literary experiment, Dubliners contains moments of joy, fear, grief, love and loss, which combine to form one of the most complete depictions of a city ever written, and the stories remain as refreshingly original and surprising in this century as they did in the last. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Dubliners features an afterword by dramatist Peter Harness. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

"One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age." Revealing the truths and realities about Irish society in the early 20th century, Joyce's Dubliners challenged the prevailing image of Dublin at the time. A group portrait made up of 15 short stories about the inhabitants of Joyce's native city, he offers a subtle critique of his own town, imbuing the text with an underlying tone of tragedy. Through his various characters he displays the complicated relationships, hardships and mundane details of everyday life and the desire for escape - a yearning that so closely mirrored his own experiences.