The Dead. James Joyce

“The Dead” is the final and longest story in the Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce. First published in 1904, the stories aim to capture Irish middle class life as it really was around Dublin at the turn-of-the-century. Like many of Joyce’s tales in the collection, “The Dead” features a transformative epiphany, where a character experiences a sudden insight into their life that changes the way they see everything. In what many consider one of Joyce’s most nuanced and well-written works, the story centers around Gabriel Conroy, his evening attending a Christmas dinner party hosted by his elderly aunts, and the experiences of his wife and various friends. In his signature style, Joyce delves deeply into the inner lives of his characters and the subtle details of their evening together in order to transform a seemingly mundane dinner party into a profound examination of the fleeting nature of life, love, happiness, and regret. At the end of the evening, Gabriel is surprised to learn that even the people he believed he knew well are capable of unseen depths of emotion and hidden experiences. “The Dead” withstands the test of time as one of Joyce’s most thought-provoking and emotionally powerful works. This edition includes a biographical afterword.