One of the most influential and innovative writers of the 20th century, James Joyce was the author of the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). His collections of poetry include Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927). Joyce was born in a suburb of Dublin. Dubliners is a collection of 15 stories about Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written over a three-year period (1904–07). Joyce finished the final story, The Dead, in spring of 1907. The period during which Dubliners is set follows the brutal so-called Potato Famine of the late 1840s — for which many Irish held the British responsible.