Must-Have Stephen Hero – James Joyce

It was originally rejected on grounds of indecency—so the story goes— by twenty publishers, whereupon Joyce threw the manuscript in the fire, but Mrs. Joyce rescued several unburnt portions.
Although Joyce later entirely rewrote his novel of a young Irishman’s rebellion against church, country and family, this early version is beautifully composed, the mood being more discursive and personal than in A Portrait. Many episodes later cut for the sake of good novelistic form, especially autobiographical episodes…