Studs Lonigan is a trilogy composed of Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan and Judgment Day. In this work James T. Farrell has brought alive the environment of the Irish Catholic in South Side Chicago.  He has caught for all time the fateful force of a young man's life and death in a lower-class slum.

Called an American Zola and a worthy successor to Theodore Dreiser, James T. Farrell has hewn a secure place in contemporary literature. For the Modern Library Giant edition the author contributes a revealing introduction, in which he tells of the origins and vicissitudes of his trilogy.