A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: The Third Greatest English-language Novel of the 20th Century by James Joyce (Timeless Classic Books)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce. The first English edition was published by the Egoist Press in February 1917. It depicts the formative years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and a pointed allusion to the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology, Daedalus. Joyce’s novel traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions in which he has been raised. He finally leaves for abroad to pursue his calling as an artist. The work pioneers some of Joyce’s modernist techniques that would later come to fruition in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The novel, which has had a “huge influence on novelists across the world”, was ranked by Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.