Amazon.com description: Product Description: "When you remember that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years," James Joyce once wrote to his brother, "that it is the 'second city' of the British Empire, that it is nearly three times as big as Venice, it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world."

Dubliners, completed when James Joyce was only twenty-five, is the first of his works to demonstrate the unique, innovative style that would make him one of the most influential novelists of the twentieth century. Joyce turns his discerning eye to Dublin's lower middle class -- to the petit-bourgeois world of shopkeepers, tradesmen, functionaries, and clerks. The result is a portrait of Dublin life in the early 1900s, an undisputed masterpiece of human experience played out against a defeated city.

Washington Square Press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Dubliners has been prepared by Dr. Stephen Watt, a notable Joyce scholar and professor of English at Indiana University. It includes his introduction, a selection of critical excerpts, and a unique visual essay of period illustrations and photographs.