These are handsome new editions of Joyce's early masterpieces in the Oxford World's Classics series, with long and perceptive introductions, and copious notes, by Jeri Johnson, a senior Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford. If the scholarly apparatus - introduction, select bibliography, chronology, appendices, notes and, in the case of Dubliners, even a very useful map of the city circa 1904 - does impart a whiff of chalk dust to these editions, they are still eminently readable, with good, clear typefaces and text unencumbered by note numbers. A Portrait probably has not lasted quite as well as Dubliners, which some consider Joyce's most nearly perfect work; indeed, if anecdote is to be trusted, even Joyce himself toward the end of his life suspected it might be the best thing he wrote.
However, A Portrait remains one of the finest childhood-and-youth novels in the language, the revolutionary nature of which we may by now have lost sight of, jaded as we are by the many poor imitations the book has inspired. At £4.99 sterling a go, here are genuine bargains.