Item category 1: Short Stories

In 'Dubliners', completed when Joyce was only 25, the author produced a definitive group portrait. The book is rooted in an accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life.

In these stories, some only three or four pages long, plots are set in motion with astonishing speed, narration is colloquial and laconic, dialogue reveals an ear for the way people speak, and every story packs a devastating emotional charge.

This collection takes us to Glanbeigh, a small town in rural Ireland - a town in which the youth have the run of the place. Boy racers speed down the back lanes; couples haunt the midnight woods; young skins huddle in the cold once The Peacock has closed its doors. Here the young live hard and we...