Dubliners was first published in 1914. The book depicts middle-class Catholic life in Dublin at the beginning of the twentieth century. The topics related in the opening stories include the disappointments of childhood, the frustrations of adolescence, and the importance of sexual awakening. Joyce was 25 years old when he wrote this miscellaneous collection of short stories, among which The Dead is probably the most famous. Considered at the time as a literary experiment, they are refreshingly original and as surprising at the beginning of this century as they were at the beginning of the last.