In January 1904 Joyce wrote a short piece which he called ‘A Portrait of the Artist’ and which he hoped to publish in a new magazine called Dana. The editor of Dana rejected the piece, saying that he couldn’t print what he couldn’t understand, and by February Joyce had started expanding this short piece into an autobiographical novel called Stephen Hero. By March 1906 the book was over 900 pages long, but Joyce was unhappy with it. After he finished writing ‘The Dead’ in 1907, he started to revise and rewrite Stephen Hero as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In 1911, in a fit of frustration, Joyce threw the manuscript of A Portrait in the fire, but it was rescued by his family before much damage was done.
Press ‘A’ to learn more about the genesis of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man… Press ‘B’ to learn more about the publishing of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man… Press ‘C’ to listen to the opening lines of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man