Biography of James Joyce

James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, and was the oldest of 10 children. After graduating from University College in London, James Joyce intended to study medicine in Paris, but he was called home because of his mother’s serious illness. While he was looking after her, he met his future partner Nora. In 1904, Joyce published three stories under the name 'Stephen Daedalus' and began work on Stephen Hero, an autobiographical novel that was published posthumously. A Portrait Of The Artist Of A Young Man (1916) is a rewrite of Stephen Hero. Joyce’s first child, a boy named Giorgio, was born in 1905. Two years later, his daughter, Lucia, was born. He began work on Dubliners in 1905, and the book was published nine years later in 1914. In addition to Dubliners and A Portrait Of The Artist Of A Young Man, James Joyce is well known for Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake (1939), which were written in a stream-of-consciousness style. Joyce’s first public outing with Nora on June 16, 1904, became the setting for his most famous novel, Ulysses (1922).  That date also became the basis of Bloomsday, which was first celebrated in 1954 and inspires people to dress up in 1904-attire and reenact scenes of Ulysses. Involved in a censorship trial, called United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses (1933), the book was later classified not obscene.   Soon after getting married to Nora in 1931, Joyce's father died. James Joyce died ten years later, on January 13, 1941.