title: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Text, Criticism, and Notes (Critical Library, Viking)
author:  James Joyce 
description: &ldquo;Joyce&rsquo;s work is not about the thing&mdash;it is the thing itself.&rdquo;&mdash;Samuel Beckett<br><br>&ldquo;Admirable.&rdquo;&mdash;Jorge Luis Borges
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  ![Cover for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man](../image/cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
  
  
  The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, _A
  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ portrays the Dublin upbringing of
  Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his
  radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique
  self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of
  origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist
  to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel
  subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition
  instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own
  language, life, and art: “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated
  conscience of my race.”
  
  
  This edition, published for the novel’s centennial, is the definitive text,
  authorized by the J