• First serialized: Three stories were first published in The Irish Homestead in 1904: “The Sisters,” “Eveline,” and “After the Race.”
• Book publication: London: Grant Richards, 1914

by Natascha Mendoza

James Joyce’s Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories that explore the everyday lives as well as the everyday struggles of the residents of Ireland’s capital.

An Unflinching Portrait of Dublin

Joyce’s stories offer a poignant and often critical look at Joyce’s Dublin, e.g. regarding Irish nationalism, religion, and social norms more generally. The short story collection revolves around the thematic leitmotifs of paralysis, gnomon, and simony, all of which appear on the first page of the first story, “The Sisters,” and are then continuously revisited in the remaining tales. Dubliners can thus also be considered one of the first examples of a short story cycle: a type of text in which the individual stories are interlinked – a series of tales situated somewhere between a collection of disconnected stories and a fully coherent novel.

Complicated Publication History

Joyce first submitted his book – which at that point comprised twelve stories – to Grant Richards in 1905. Richards agreed to publish the book, and Joyce added a thirteenth story in early 1906. However, the printer objected to the content of some of the stories and refused to move ahead with the project. This was because, under UK law, he would have been liable for the publication. Joyce refused to make any changes, and the book was withdrawn. After Joyce had received numerous rejections, the Dublin firm Maunsel & Company accepted the book, which by that point, in 1909, comprised fifteen stories. However, this deal eventually also fell through, and after a re-evaluation the collection was finally published with Grant Richards in 1914.

Joyce himself had commented on the importance of his short stories and in an early letter he had written to Richards, on the 23rd of June 1906: “It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilisation in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.” (Letters 63-4).

^{Source: Joyce, James. Letters. Edited by Stuart Gilbert, Faber and Faber, 1957.}

How Joyce’s Stories Are Organized