Dubliners, published in 1914 by Irish writer James Joyce, is a collection of fifteen short stories portraying the lives of ordinary people in Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century. Arranged to trace human development from childhood through adolescence, maturity, and public life, the stories reveal the moral, social, and spiritual paralysis that Joyce believed afflicted Irish society. Through plain yet precise naturalistic prose, characters experience moments of epiphany—sudden revelations of their own stagnation and unfulfilled aspirations. Works such as "Araby," "Eveline," and "The Dead" exemplify Joyce's early modernist style, making Dubliners a landmark of twentieth-century literature.
