James Joyce is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, foundational in the history of literary modernism. Yet Joyces genius was not immediately recognized, nor was his success easily won. At twenty-two the author chose a life of exile; he battled poverty and financial dependency for much of his adult life; his out-of-wedlock relationship with Nora Barnacle was scandalous for the time; and the attitudes he held toward Ireland, England, sexuality, politics, Catholicism, popular culture—to name a few—were complex, contradictory, and controversial.

     In James Joyce, Gordon Bowker, draws on material recently come to light and reconsiders the two signal works produced about Joyces life—Herbert Gormans authorized biography of 1939 and Richard Ellmanns magisterial tome of 1959. By intimately binding together the life and work of this singular Irish novelist, Bowker gives us a masterful, fresh, eminently readable contribution to our understanding both of Joyces personality and of the monumental opus he created.