Dubliners Dubliners Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in
The Dead (short story) expands past him, edging into the surreal and encompassing the entirety of Ireland. As the story ends, we are told that "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." Dan Barry of "The New York Times" called "The Dead" "just about the finest short story in the English language" on the centennial of "Dubliners". T. S. Eliot called it one of greatest short stories ever written. Joyce biographer and critic Richard Ellmann wrote, "In its lyrical, melancholy