James Stephens (9 February 1880 – 26 December 1950) was an Irish novelist and poet.
Early life
James Stephens's birth is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Stephens himself claimed to have been born on the same day and same year as James Joyce (2 February 1882), whereas he is in fact probably the same James Stephens who is on record as being born at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, on 9 February 1880, the son of Francis Stephens (c. 1840–1882/3) of 5 Thomas's Court, Dublin, a vanman and a messenger for a stationer's office, and his wife, Charlotte Collins (born c. 1847). His father died when Stephens was two years old, and when he was six years old, his mother remarried, and Stephens was committed to the Meath Protestant Industrial School for Boys in Blackrock for begging on the streets, where he spent much of the rest of his childhood. He attended school with his adoptive brothers Thomas and Richard (Tom and Dick) Collins before graduating as a solicitor's clerk. They competed and won several athletic competitions despite James's tiny stature (he stood 4 ft 10 in (1.47 m) in his socks). He was known affectionately as 'Tiny Tim'. He was much enthralled by the tales of military valour of his adoptive family and would have become a soldier except for his height.
Career and nationalism
By the early 1900s Stephens was increasingly inclined to socialism and the Irish language (he spoke and wrote Irish) and by 1912 was a dedicated Irish Republican. He was a close friend of the 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh, who was then editor of the Irish Review and deputy headmaster in St Enda's, the radical bilingual Montessori school run by P. H. Pearse and later manager of the Irish Theatre. Stephens spent much time with MacDonagh in 1911. His growing nationalism brought a schism with his adoptive family, but probably won him his job as registrar in the National Gallery of Ireland, where he worked between 1915 and 1925, having previously had an ill-paid job with the Mecredy firm of solicitors.
