The book presents a complete collection of the fictional prose of J. Joyce, composed before his main work, the novel “Ulysses” (1922). The works of this period form a kind of quartet: they include the cycle of prose studies Epiphanies (1900–1903), the early unfinished opus Stephen the Hero (1904–1906), the collection of short stories Dubliners (1904–1907) and the novel Portrait of the Artist in youth" (1907–1914). All texts are published in new translations by S.S. Horuzhego; The Russian translation of “Epiphanies” appears in print for the first time. The commentary accompanying the publication is both ordinary real and analytical, introducing semantic, historical, cultural and biographical contexts. The final article depicts the world of the early Joyce in his inner life, his aesthetic and existential impulses: as a rare independent, original creative world in which the artist in his youth, following his own “Joyce vector” and checking it with “Flaubert’s vector,” headed to the top “ Ulysses."