A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Synopsis
James Joyce's first novel follows the life of Stephen Dedalus, an artistic and fiercely individual young man. Along the way, Stephen learns to negotiate the 'snares of the world', to avoid the pitfalls of his dysfunctional family, his terrifying and repressive boarding school, and the various beautiful young ladies who capture his heart. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an unforgettable depiction of childhood and adolescence, as well as a lyrical evocation of life in Ireland over a century ago. It shocked readers on its publication in 1916 and it is now regarded as one of the most significant literary works of the twentieth century.
This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man features an afterword by 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.
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James Joyce Press Reviews
'One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.' -- H. G. Wells
'[Mr. Joyce is] concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its myriad message through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imaginations free.' -- Virginia Woolf
'[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will] remain a permanent part of English literature.' -- Ezra Pound
About James Joyce
James Joyce was born on 2 February 1882, the eldest of ten surviving children. He was educated by Jesuits at Clogowes Wood College and at Belvedere College (just up the road from the Centre) before going on to University College, then located on St Stephen’s Green, where he studied modern languages. After he graduated from university, Joyce went to Paris, ostensibly to study medicine, and was recalled to Dublin in April 1903 because of the illness and subsequent death of his mother. He stayed in Ireland until 1904, and in June that year he met Nora Barncale, the Galway woman who was to become his partner and later his wife.
Joyce’s last and perhaps most challenging work, Finnegans Wake was published on 4 May 1939. It was immediately listed as “the book of the week” in the UK and the USA. Joyce died at the age of fifty-nine, on 13 January 1941, at 2 a.m., in Schwesterhaus vom Roten Kreuz in Zurich where he and his family had been given asylum . He is buried in Fluntern cemetary, Zurich.
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