Ebook: Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition

The first aim of this volume is to provide an authoritative text
of the stories. The text is that prepared for the Viking Compass
edition by Robert Scholes, in consultation with Richard Ellmann,
and it is based on a careful collation of all available sources (see
"A Note on the Text," 225).
The second aim of this volume is to provide a variety of per..
spectives for the reader of Dubliners. Since Joyce's lengthy corre-
spondence with publisher and friends concerning the attempts to
"censor" Dubliners reveals a great deal about his aesthetic aims
and the particular plan of the stories, we have -reprinted all the
significant parts of that correspondence. In addition, we have pro-
vided an early draft of one story, which shows the distance Joyce
tra veled in the years from 1904 to 1907. This early draft should
give the reader a graphic sense of Joyce's direction as he reworked
both the texture of his stories and the larger plan of the collection.
When an early story such as "After the Race" is compared with
"The Dead," or the first draft of "The Sisters" with the final ver-
sion, it becomes obvious that the making of Dubliners was also
the making of a style.