How is this book unique? Unabridged (100% Original content) Formatted for e-reader Font adjustments & biography included About A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology.