In his first published work in prose, James Joyce paints vivid portraits of the people of Dublin, his city of birth, in a collection of stories whose larger purpose, he said, was to depict a "moral history of Ireland".
From the first story, in which a young boy encounters death, to the haunting final story involving the middle-aged Gabriel, the book gives an unflinching and realistic portrayal of "dear, dirty Dublin" in the early 20th-century.
This brilliant study is by turns bawdy and witty, but always darkened by a paralysis of spirit and emotions.