James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) is a towering figure in the development of English-language modernist prose fiction. And his influence extends well beyond the anglophone literary world; like his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, Joyce flew by the nets of nationality, language, and religion, and spent most of his life in continental Europe.

The significance of Joyce's oeuvre--particularly the later and more radical prose works--far outweighs the modesty of its bulk: only two books of verse, a play, one collection of short stories, and three novels (using that term in its...