In Dubliners, Joyce's first attempt to register in language and fictive form the protean complexities of the 'reality of experience, ' he learns the paradoxical lesson that only through the most rigorous economy, only by concentrating on the minutest of particulars, can he have any hope of engaging with the immensity of the world. -from the Introduction Joyce renews our apprehension of reality, strengthens our sympathy with our fellow creatures, and leaves us in awe before the mystery of created things. -Atlantic Monthly It is in the prose of Dubliners that we first hear the authentic rhythms of Joyce the poet...Dubliners is, in a very real sense, the foundation of Joyce's art. In shaping its stories, he developed that mastery of naturalistic detail and symbolic design which is the hallmark of his mature fiction. -Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz, authors of Dubliners: Text and Criticism With an Introduction by John Kelly