James Joyce

Dubliners Annotated and Illustrated Edition by James Joyce

Dubliners is a collection of short stories, and while the book has no centralized plot, the stories are organized in a way that mirrors the progression through life's stages. The first three stories are about childhood. "Eveline," "After the Race," "Two Gallants," and "The Boarding House" focus on unmarried young adults, in their late teens through early thirties. "A Little Cloud" and "Counterparts" feature main characters entrenched in adulthood; both protagonists are family men with unsatisfying jobs. The remaining stories focus on characters in early to late middle-age, some with more settled lives than others.