James Joyce: The Letters

To Grant Richards (1906): I believe Richards would eventually publish Joyce's Dubliners, but there was a lot of back-and-forth before that happened (e.g., the slang term "bloody" -- mistakenly believed to be an allusion to Christ or the Virgin -- was a big trip at the time):


Perhaps this may reconcile you to Dubliners. It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilisation in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.

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