The Dubliners stories - in order of composition

Dubliners was accepted by Grant Richards of London in 1905 and turned down by him in 1906 in consequence of objections from his printer. It was accepted by Maunsel & Co. of Dublin in 1909, and printed up in galleys during 1910 but destroyed in 1912 - though Joyce apparently secured one copy of the galleys or, proof-sheets, ‘by a ruse’. It was finally published by Richards in London on 15 June 1914, using the former proof sheets as copy text. Huebsch of New York then used Richards’ sheets to issue the first American edition in the following year.

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1. “THE SISTERS” [No. 1] - publ. in The Irish Homestead (13 Aug. 1904); rewritten May-June 1906.
2. “AN ENCOUNTER” [No. 9] - completed (and revised) 18 Sept. 1905.
3. “ARABY” [No. 11] - begun 18 Oct. 1905; completed in same month.
4. “EVELINE” [No. 2] -publ. in The Irish Homestead (10 Sept. 1904); revised Oct. 1905.
5. “AFTER THE RACE”  [No. 3] - publ. in The Irish Homestead (17 Dec. 1904); never revised.
6. “TWO GALLANTS”* [No. 13] - completed Feb. 1906; ‘bloody’ marked by publisher’s blue pencil, April 1906.
7. “THE BOARDING HOUSE” [No. 5]  - completed 1 July 1905 [date on MS]; revised by 13 July 1905.
8. “A LITTLE CLOUD”* [No. 12] - completed mid-1906.
9. “COUNTERPARTS” [No.6] - completed mid-July 1905 (revised by 15 July 1905).
10. “CLAY” [No. 4] - begun as “Christmas Eve”, late Oct. 1904; completed in Jan. 1905; offered to Irish Homestead, and rejected; rewritten spring 1905; lightly revised 1906.
11. “A PAINFUL CASE” [No. 7] - orig. written as “A Painful Incident”, completed by 8 May 1905; repeatedly retouched in 1906.
12. “IVY DAY IN THE COMMITTEE ROOM”  [No. 8] - fair copy dated 29 Aug 1905; virtually unchanged.
13. “A MOTHER” [No.10] - finished in Sept. 1905; revised Oct. 1905.
14. “GRACE” [No. 12] - composed Oct.-Dec. 1905; an early version was finished on 27 Nov. 1905.
15. “THE DEAD”*† [No. 15] - written in July-September 1907 [i.e., after Dubliners was rejected by Richards].

Rubric: Bold = order of composition; *supplied to Grant Richards after Dec. 1905 - i.e., when publication was in doubt; †written after Richard rejected Dubliners and without prospect of publication.

  

Unwritten stories: “Ulysses” (which ‘never got any forrader [further] than the title’), “The Last Supper”, “The Street”, “Vengeance”, “At Bay” and “Catharsis” - all of which Joyce ‘could write if circumstances were favourable’ (All cited in a letter to Stanislaus of 6 Jan. 1907 from Rome, in Letters of James Joyce, Vol. II, ed. Richard Ellmann, Viking Press 1966,  p.209.)

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