Dubliners (1914) is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, depicting the middle-class life of Dublin at the beginning of the twentieth century. It ends with The Dead, often considered one of the finest stories in English.
The stories
The stories are arranged, Joyce said, in four groups: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. They show characters trapped by family, religion, money and the city itself, from the boy of Araby to the clerk of Counterparts.
Each story often ends with a moment of sudden insight, which Joyce called an 'epiphany', in which a character glimpses the truth of his or her life.
A long road to print
Joyce wrote most of the stories in 1904–1907. The London publisher Grant Richards accepted the book in 1906, then delayed it for fear of the printers and the law, over the use of real names and certain words.
A Dublin publisher, Maunsel, also backed out, and the printer destroyed the sheets in 1912. Grant Richards finally published Dubliners in June 1914.
The Dead
The last and longest story takes place at a Christmas party given by the Morkan sisters. Gabriel Conroy, a teacher, gives a speech, and afterwards learns from his wife Gretta of a young man, Michael Furey, who loved her long ago in Galway.
The story ends with snow falling all over Ireland. John Huston filmed it in 1987, his last film.
Anecdotes
Paralysis
Joyce wrote to his publisher that he wanted to show Dublin as 'the centre of paralysis'. The word appears on the first page of the first story, The Sisters.
Real names
Publishers feared libel because Joyce used the real names of Dublin pubs, shops and even people, and mentioned King Edward VII in one story.
Frequently asked questions
How many stories are in Dubliners?
Fifteen, from The Sisters to The Dead.
What is an epiphany in Joyce?
A sudden moment of revelation in which a character, or the reader, sees the truth of a situation.
When was Dubliners published?
In June 1914 in London, about ten years after Joyce began writing it.