First appearing serially in 1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is James Joyce's first novel. Portrait began its life as a 63-chapter autobiographical novel called Stephen Hero in 1904, but after three years and 25 chapters, Joyce decided to abandon the initial project and reworked the book's events and themes into a five-chapter work of philosophical fiction. While Stephen Hero employed a realistic writing style, Portrait makes liberal use of free indirect speech, a technique that allows the readers glimpses into the protagonist's thoughts.
Portrait follows the life of Stephen Dedalus - Joyce's fictional alter ego - from his time as a young boy, tracing his growing doubt and...
