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.