"The Dead" was first published in 1914 as part of Joyce's short story collection called Dubliners. Joyce had actually written all the stories by 1907, when he finished "The Dead," but he struggled for seven years to get the collection published. The publishers were in a sense its first critics, refusing to publish the collection because some of the stories had mildly profane language and because they refer to real people and places in and around Dublin.

When Dubliners was finally published, the first critics were struck by Joyce's meticulous concentration on the ordinary and drab details of life. Joyce's subject matter, which avoids any attempt at the sensational, was noticeably different to them. A 1914 review in the Times Literary Supplement said that Dubliners "may be recommended to the large class of readers to whom the drab makes an appeal, for it is admirably written." Gerald Gould, writing...