Although James Joyce completed these fifteen stories of Dublin life in 1907, they remained unpublished until 1914--victims of Edwardian squeamishness. Their vivid, tightly focused observations of the life of Dublin's poorer classes as well as their unconventional themes, coarse language, and mention of actual people and places made publishers of the day reluctant to undertake sponsorship.
Today, the stories are admired for their intense and masterly dissection of "dear dirty Dublin" and for the economy and grace with which Joyce invested this youthful fiction. From the first story "The Sisters," illuminating a young boy's initial encounter with death, through the final piece, "The Dead," considered a masterpiece of the form, these tales represent, as Joyce himself explained, a chapter in the moral history of Ireland that would give the Irish "one good look at themselves." In the end the stories are not just about the Irish; they represent moments of revelation common to all people.