That James Joyce’s “The Dead” forms an extraordinary conclusion to his collection Dubliners, there can be no doubt. But as many have pointed out, “The Dead” may equally well be read as a novella—arguably, one of the finest novellas ever written. “The Dead,” a “story of public life,” as Joyce categorized it, was written more than a year after Joyce had finished the other stories in the collection, and was meant to redress what he felt was their “unnecessary harsh[ness].” Set on the feast of the epiphany, it is a haunting tale of connection and of alienation, reflecting, in the words of Stanislaus Joyce (James’s brother and confidant), “the nostalgic love of a rejected exile.” The present volume highlights “The Dead” for readers who wish to focus on that great work in a concise volume—and for university courses in which it is not possible to cover all of Dubliners. But it also gives a strong sense of how that story is part of a larger whole. Stories from each of the other sections of Dubliners have been included, and a wide range of background materials is included as well, providing a vivid sense of the literary and historical context out of which the work emerged.

"The Dead is one of the twentieth century's most beautiful pieces of short literature. Taking his inspiration from a family gathering held every year on the Feast of the Epiphany, Joyce pens a story about a married couple attending a Christmas-season party at the house of the husband's two elderly aunts. A shocking confession made by the husband's wife toward the end of the story showcases the power of Joyce's greatest innovation: the epiphany, that moment when everything, for character and reader alike, is suddenly clear.

In a list published by an American specialized magazine, which ranked the best short stories of the 20th century, the story chosen as the best was " The Dead" by James Joyce, and there are plenty of reasons for this choice. "The Dead" is the final story in the volume "Dubliners" and differs from the other stories both in its greater length and its poetic intensity and symbolism. The central theme here is the mortality of the human being, which is suggested from the title. But it encompasses much more than that. The description of the New Year's Eve party is a clear example of Joyce's skill in depicting scenes, highlighting aspects that seem of no importance. The complexity that Joyce was able to infuse into his masterpiece "Ulysses" is well known, but the story "The Dead," with its simplicity, is proof of the enormous versatility and talent of this great writer.

Adapted from Joyce's literary masterpiece set in 1904, the last and best known of the short stories collected in The Dubliners, this intimate musical portrays a homespun Yuletide party with Irish music, dancing, food, drink and good fellowship. Sparkling songs, many of them traditional sounding Irish melodies that are performed as entertainment by the partygoers, are all original. Christopher Walken starred in a production that moved from Playwrights Horizon to Broadway.

Dubliners is a collection of picturesque short stories that paint a portrait of life in middle-class Dublin in the early 20th century. Joyce, a Dublin native, was careful to use actual locations and settings in the city, as well as language and slang in use at the time, to make the stories directly relatable to those who lived there. The collection had a rocky publication history, with the stories being initially rejected over eighteen times before being provisionally accepted by a publisher—then later rejected again, multiple times. It took Joyce nine years to finally see his stories in print, but not before seeing a printer burn all but one copy of the proofs. Today Dubliners survives as a rich example of not just literary excellence, but of what everyday life was like for average Dubliners in their day. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

With an essay by J. I. M. Stewart. 'Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears ... But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work' 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. With Dubliners, James Joyce reinvented the art of fiction, using a scrupulous, deadpan realism to convey truths that were at once blasphemous and sacramental. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.