The Irish Homestead was the weekly publication of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), a co-operative run for the benefit of farmers. Its enterprising editor George William Russell invited an unknown young writer to contribute a short story which the author, then aged 22, duly did. ‘The Sisters,’ James Joyce’s first published work of fiction, appeared on 13th August 1904 and began thus:
“Three nights in succession I had found myself in Great Britain-street at that hour, as if by Providence. Three nights also I had raised my eyes to that lighted square of window and speculated. I seemed to understand that it would occur at night. But in spite of the Providence that had led my feet, and in spite of the reverent curiosity of my eyes, I had discovered nothing. Each night the square was lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. It was not the light of candles, so far as I could see. Therefore, it had not yet occurred.”
You can read the rest of this 1904 version here.
A revised version of ‘The Sisters’ would later feature as the opening story in Dubliners(1914) and it’s a great improvement over the original. It explicitly introduces the theme of paralysis that permeates the entire collection; the political, religious, social and moral stagnation of Ireland’s ‘priest-ridden, god-forsaken race.’ Here’s the revised opening:
“There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: “I am not long for this world,” and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis.”
You can read this later, final version, here. The two drafts reveal the startling development of Joyce’s precocious genius.
First published in The Irish Homestead, 13 August 1904, and collected in Dubliners, Grant Richards Ltd., 1914)
