The Dead (short story) The Dead (short story) "The Dead" is the final story in the 1914 collection "Dubliners" by James Joyce. The other stories in the collection are shorter, whereas at 15,952 words, "The Dead" is long enough to be described as a novella. The story deals with themes of love and loss as well as raising questions about the nature of the Irish identity. Gabriel Conroy, Gretta Conroy, Kate and Julia Morkan, and Bartell d'Arcy are all alluded to in James Joyce's later work, "Ulysses", though no character from "The Dead" makes a direct appearance in the novel. The story centres on
The Idiots (short story) The Idiots (short story) "The Idiots" is a short story by Joseph Conrad, his first to be published. It first appeared in "The Savoy" in 1896. The story was included in the Conrad collection "Tales of Unrest", published in 1898. Set in Britanny, the story describes a couple whose children have intellectual disability; the strain on the family leads eventually to murder. The story was written during Joseph Conrad's honeymoon; he rented a house on Île-Grande, on the north coast of Brittany, from April to August 1896. His wife Jessie later wrote that "much of our Île-Grande life is in