Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Add A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to bookshelf
Add to Bookshelf

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Introduction by Richard Brown

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

By James Joyce
Introduction by Richard Brown

By James Joyce
Introduction by Richard Brown

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

By James Joyce

Best Seller

Part of Vintage International

Part of Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series

Part of Modern Library 100 Best Novels

Paperback $11.00

Apr 06, 1993 | ISBN 9780679739890

Mass Market Paperback $5.95

Jan 01, 1992 | ISBN 9780553214048

Hardcover $28.00

Oct 15, 1991 | ISBN 9780679405757

Ebook $1.99

Oct 25, 2005 | ISBN 9780553902068

Ebook $3.99

Nov 01, 2000 | ISBN 9780679641612

All Formats
+
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
    Hardcover $28.00
    Oct 15, 1991 | ISBN 9780679405757

    Buy from Other Retailers:

    See All Formats (4) +
    • $11.00

      Apr 06, 1993 | ISBN 9780679739890

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • $5.95

      Jan 01, 1992 | ISBN 9780553214048

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • $28.00

      Oct 15, 1991 | ISBN 9780679405757

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Oct 25, 2005 | ISBN 9780553902068

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Nov 01, 2000 | ISBN 9780679641612

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Buy the Ebook:

    About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile, and cunning."

    James Joyce’s supremely innovative fictional autobiography is also, in the apt phrase of the biographer Richard Ellmann, nothing less than "the gestation of a soul." For as he describes the shabby, cloying, and sometimes terrifying Dublin upbringing of his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, Joyce immerses the reader in his emerging consciousness, employing language that ranges from baby talk to hellfire sermon to a triumphant artist’s manifesto. The result is a novel of immense boldness, eloquence, and energy, a work that inaugurated a literary revolution and has become a model for the portrayal of the self in our time.

    The text of this edition has been newly edited by Hans Walter Gabler and Walter Hettche and is followed by a new afterword, chronology, and bibliography by Richard Brown.

    About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    Perhaps Joyce’s most personal work, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man depicts the intellectual awakening of one of literature’s most memorable young heroes, Stephen Dedalus.  Through a series of brilliant epiphanies that parallel the development of his own aesthetic consciousness, Joyce evokes Stephen’s youth, from his impressionable years as the youngest student at the Clongowed Wood school to the deep religious conflict he experiences at a day school in Dublin, and finally to his college studies where he challenges the conventions of his upbringing and his understanding of faith and intellectual freedom.  James Joyce’s highly autobiographical novel was first published in the United States in 1916 to immediate acclaim.  Ezra Pound accurately predicted that Joyce’s book would "remain a permanent part of English literature," while H.G. Wells dubbed it "by far the most important living and convincing picture that exists of an Irish Catholic upbringing."  A remarkably rich study of a developing young mind, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man made an indelible mark on literature and confirmed Joyce’s reputation as one of the world’s greatest and lasting writers.

    About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    A beautiful Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of James Joyce’s first and still most widely read novel, with an introduction by Richard Brown.

    In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce makes a strange peace with the traditional narrative of a young man’s self-discovery by respecting its substance while exploding its form, thereby inaugurating a literary revolution.

    Published in 1916 when Joyce was already at work on Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is exactly what its title says and much more. In an exuberantly inventive masterpiece of subjectivity, Joyce portrays his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, growing up in Dublin and struggling through religious and sexual guilt toward an aesthetic awakening. In part a vivid picture of Joyce’s own youthful evolution into one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, it is also a moment in the intellectual history of an age.

    Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author’s life and times.

    About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    A beautiful Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of James Joyce’s first and still most widely read novel, with an introduction by Richard Brown.

    In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce makes a strange peace with the traditional narrative of a young man’s self-discovery by respecting its substance while exploding its form, thereby inaugurating a literary revolution.

    Published in 1916 when Joyce was already at work on Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is exactly what its title says and much more. In an exuberantly inventive masterpiece of subjectivity, Joyce portrays his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, growing up in Dublin and struggling through religious and sexual guilt toward an aesthetic awakening. In part a vivid picture of Joyce’s own youthful evolution into one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, it is also a moment in the intellectual history of an age.

    Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author’s life and times.

    About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

    Published in 1916, James Joyce’s semiautobiographical tale of his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, is a coming-of-age story like no other. A bold, innovative experiment with both language and structure, the work has exerted a lasting influence on the contemporary novel.

    ‘Joyce dissolved mechanism in literature as effectively as Einstein destroyed it in physics,’ wrote Alfred Kazin. ‘He showed that the material of fiction could rest upon as tense a distribution and as delicate a balance of its parts as any poem. Joyce’s passion for form, in fact, is the secret of his progress as a novelist. He sought to bring the largest possible quantity of human life under the discipline of the observing mind, and the mark of his success is that he gave an epic form to what remains invisible to most novelists…. Joyce means many things to different people; for me his importance has always been primarily a moral one. He was, perhaps, the last man in Europe who wrote as if art were worth a human life…. By living for his art he may yet have given others a belief in art worth living for.’

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    Joyce: Poems and a Play
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    See all books by James Joyce

    Also by James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    Joyce: Poems and a Play
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    See all books by James Joyce

    Also by James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    Joyce: Poems and a Play
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    See all books by James Joyce

    Also by James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    Joyce: Poems and a Play
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    See all books by James Joyce

    Also by James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    Joyce: Poems and a Play
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Dubliners
    See all books by James Joyce

    About James Joyce

    James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After… More about James Joyce

    About James Joyce

    James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After… More about James Joyce

    About James Joyce

    James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After… More about James Joyce

    About James Joyce

    James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After… More about James Joyce

    About James Joyce

    James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After… More about James Joyce

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Paperback | $11.00
    Published by Vintage
    Apr 06, 1993 | 288 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780679739890

    Category: Literary Fiction | Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Mass Market Paperback | $5.95
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Jan 01, 1992 | 240 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553214048

    Category: Literary Fiction | Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Hardcover | $28.00
    Published by Everyman’s Library
    Oct 15, 1991 | 368 Pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 9780679405757

    Category: Literary Fiction | Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $1.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Oct 25, 2005 | 240 Pages | ISBN 9780553902068

    Category: Literary Fiction | Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $3.99
    Published by Modern Library
    Nov 01, 2000 | 288 Pages | ISBN 9780679641612

    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

    Praise

    “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is in fact the gestation of a soul.” —Richard Ellmann

    “One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.” —H. G. Wells

    “[Mr. Joyce is] concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its myriad message through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imaginations free.” —Virginia Woolf

    “[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will] remain a permanent part of English literature.” —Ezra Pound

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Raise kids who love to read

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read

    Today's Top Books

    Today's Top Books

    Want to know what people are actually reading right now?

         An online magazine for today’s home cook

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook