A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce's semiautobiographical masterwork that revolutionized the novel form. This 1968 Penguin Books paperback presents Stephen Dedalus's journey from childhood through university as he struggles to forge his identity against the crushing weight of Irish Catholicism, nationalism, and family expectation.

Originally serialized in "The Egoist" (1914-15) and published in book form in 1916, "Portrait" pioneered stream-of-consciousness technique and the kunstlerroman in English. Joyce's prose evolves with Stephen's consciousness - from childlike fragments ("Once upon a time and a very good time it was") to the soaring rhetoric of his artistic manifesto. The novel culminates in Stephen's rejection of Ireland's "nets" of nationality, language, and religion, choosing instead artistic exile.