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Born in a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, James Joyce received his early education at schools run by Jesuit priests. Joyce had a troubled childhood: his father's heavy drinking and resulting unemployment led the family into serious economic difficulties. Nevertheless, Joyce was able to attend University College in Dublin. After his graduation in 1902, he moved to Paris. Although he returned for a brief time to Ireland to stay with his mother during her final illness, he left again in 1904, believing that he had to leave his childhood home to examine his complex thoughts and responses to his native land and to find the freedom needed "to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncrated conscience of my race." He spent the rest of his life living in major European cities--Trieste, Zurich, and Paris--while writing Dubliners, the collection of short stories in which "Araby" appears (written between 1904 and 1907; published in 1914); Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, an autobiographical novel (1916); Ulysses (1922); and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Major works by Joyce

Chamber Music, (1907, poems)
Dubliners (1914)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Exiles (1918, play)
Ulysses (1920)
Collected Poems (1936)
Finnegans Wake (1939)
Letters, Vol. 1 (1957); Vols. 2--3 (1966)
The Critical Writings of James Joyce (1959)

Joyce and the Web

The James Joyce Resource Center at Ohio State University has a wealth of Joyce-related resources, including a timeline, links, bibliographies, and an interesting image gallery.

Interested in Irish history? This page from Irish History on the Web contains excellent links to sites about Irish Home Rule, which will help you put "Araby" and Joyce's other work into a historical context.

To see what's on other Joyceans' minds, check out this WWWBoard at the Joycean.org website.