Archives for 2014

The Muse’s Tragedy

June 20, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Muse’s Tragedy first appeared in the Scribner’s Magazine number 25 for January 1899. The story was included in the first collection of Edith Wharton’s short stories, The Greater Inclination published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1899.

first edition – cover design by Berkeley Updike

The Muse’s Tragedy – critical commentary

The principal feature of interest in this early story is the manner in which the narrative is composed. It has a remarkably poised structure, and although its is essentially a ‘reversal of expectation’ tale, Wharton brings quite an original approach to the arrangement of events in the narrative – particularly in omitting what would normally be considered a crucial part of the narrative.

In the first two parts of the story events are related from Lewis Danyers’ point of view. We learn of his admiration for the work of Victor Rendle, and his feeling of good fortune on meeting the still-attractive Mary Anerton, the muse of Rendle’s most famous poems. These two elements appear to be successfully fused when at the end of their stay at the Hotel Villa d’Este she persuades him to write a study on Rendle and agrees to help him work on it.

They go to Venice and spend a month together, during which time we learn (later) that Danyers falls in love with Mary Anerton and asks her to marry him. But none of this information is relayed directly. In fact the whole of their stay is omitted from the narrative. Instead, Wharton jumps ahead to the day following its conclusion, and part three of the story is a letter written by Mary explaining to Danyers why she cannot marry him.

The letter explains her past as the muse of Vincent Rendle, her devoted love for him, and her disappointment at not being loved in return. All the earlier information Danyers has gathered seemed to point towards a secret affair between the poet and the woman who inspired his best work. She was after all married to Mr Anerton, who tolerated Rendle’s close relationship with his wife, and even invited him on holiday with them.

But the bitter irony for Mary is that though she worshipped Rendle for fifteen years, her love was not reciprocated, and she is left wondering what it might be like to be loved for herself alone. She has found out during her four weeks with Danyers in Venice, but she feels that although she loves Danyers, she cannot allow him to marry a ‘disappointed woman’.

The letter explains some her earlier behaviour, including her cool reception of Danyers’ essay on Rendle. By the time of receiving the essay, Mary Anerton has become galled by the irony of being viewed as the muse of Rendle’s work – because he has taken the inspiration from her, but offered nothing in return. It also explains why she has been happy to spend a month together with Danyers without once discussing the proposed study of Rendle and his work. By this point she is heartily sick of the work she has inspired. That is her ‘tragedy’.

The Muse’s Tragedy – study resources

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon US

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Descent of Man and Other Stories – Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Muse’s Tragedy – plot summary

Part I. Lewis Danyers is a young American who has written a prize-winning essay on the poetry of Vincent Rendle, much of whose work has been inspired by his muse, Mrs Mary Anerton. When Danyers’ friend Mrs Memorall reveals that Mary Anerton was her childhood friend, it fires his imagination and his desire to know more about the inspiration for so much great poetry. The public has been kept at bay by Rendle, and even Mary Anerton’s husband has been protective of the association with such a revered artist.

Since the death of both Vincent Rendle and her husband, Mary Anerton has become lonely and introspective. Mrs Memorall thinks she should remarry, but she did not marry Rendle when she had the chance. Danyers republishes his appreciation of Rendle, and Mrs Memorall sends a copy to Mary Anerton, where it receives a polite but cool reception. However, when he meets Mary at the Hotel Villa d’Este, she compliments him warmly on his work.

Part II. During their stay at the hotel, Danyers gets to know Mary Anerton very well, and he realises that she knows every last detail of Rendle’s work, and also that she has an original intelligence of her own which is reflected in the poetry. May encourages Danyers to write a book on Rendle, which he agrees to if she will help him work on it.

Part III. They spend a month together in Venice, during which time it becomes obvious that they have fallen in love and he has made her a proposal of marriage. Mary writes Danyers a letter the day after the end of their sojourn explaining why she cannot accept his offer and giving a full explanation of her relationship with Vincent Rendle.

She was in love with Rendle and he was inspired by her – but he only regarded her as a friend. She gave up fifteen years of her life to him and has emerged empty-handed at the end of it. People assumed she was his lover, but this was not true. She has even edited his letters to her, making it appear as if they omitted personal details and references – when there was nothing there in the first place.

He even continued sharing his ideas on poetry with her whilst he was chasing after a young girl in Switzerland. When her husband died, her hopes rose – then fell back again when Rendle merely resumed their old friendship. When Rendle himself dies, she becomes famous as his love object. She goes through black periods and asks herself why Rendle didn’t love her, and wonders if she simply isn’t attractive to men.

This has led up to her month in Venice with Danyers. She was attracted to him and wanted to be loved for herself – not because she was the muse of somebody’s poems. She realises that Danyers loved her for herself, and they spent a month in Venice without even mentioning the proposed book which was the ostensible reason for the vacation. Now, even though she has discovered what it means to be loved, she feels she must renounce him to save Danyers from marrying ‘a disappointed woman’.

The Muse’s Tragedy – Principal characters

Lewis Danyers	a young scholar
Mrs Mary Anerton	‘Sylvia’, the muse of Vincent Rendle
Mr Anerton	her indulgent husband
Vincent Rendle	a reclusive poet
Mrs Memorall	a friend of Danyers

Edith Wharton’s 42-room house – The Mount

Other works by Edith Wharton

The Custom of the Country (1913) is Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. This is a study of modern ambition and materialism written a hundred years before its time.
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The House of Mirth (1905) is the story of Lily Bart, who is beautiful, poor, and still unmarried at twenty-nine. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her. The book is a disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton’s generation. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways that transform the traditional novel of manners into an arresting modern document of cultural anthropology.
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Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

The Short Stories of Edith Wharton
This is an old-fashioned but excellently detailed site listing the publication details of all Edith Wharton’s eighty-six short stories – with links to digital versions available free on line.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton at Fantastic Fiction
A compilation which purports to be a complete bibliography, arranged as novels, collections, non-fiction, anthologies, short stories, letters, and commentaries – but is largely links to book-selling sites, which however contain some hidden gems.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Other Two

February 16, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Other Two first appeared in Collier’s Weekly in February 1904, and was included in the collection of Edith Wharton’s stories The Descent of Man and Other Stories which was published later the same year. Collier’s Weekly was a very popular illustrated magazine which featured articles on current affairs and high quality fiction on a regular basis. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were making a big impact on the American public in the same magazine at this time.

The Other Two – critical commentary

This is an amusing and lightly satirical story in which nobody is seriously harmed, but it rests on a quite serious social phenomenon which was relatively new at the time – easier access to divorce, and the possible consequences. As Waythorn ruefully observes of his wife’s skill in arranging relations between himself and her two ex-husbands – ‘she had discovered the solution of [sic] the newest social problem’.

Alice Waythorn’s first marriage is to a shabby, insignificant man who Waythorn thinks looks like a ‘piano tuner’ and who he regards to be of no social consequence at all. Alice claims that the marriage ended because he was a ‘brute’. But Haskett turns out to be a mild, decent man who has made great personal sacrifices to stay close to his daughter Lily, the daughter who her mother clearly neglects.

Having divorced Haskett, she marries Gus Varick who is more prosperous, and this gives her the social lift she is seeking: ‘Alice Haskett’s remarriage to Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted’. But after a few years she ditches him in favour of Waythorn – who she treats in a completely dismissive manner. On the very first night under Waythorn’s roof after their honeymoon, she is late for dinner, and she is clearly manipulating him to her own ends. She is in fact a social climber – a type who Edith Wharton went on to analyse in greater detail in the character of her anti-heroine Undine Spragg in the later novel The Custom of the Country.

The Other Two – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Other Two – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Other Two – paperback edition – Amazon UK

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Other Two – plot synopsis

Part I. Newly married Waythorn is eagerly anticipating a romantic dinner with his new wife Alice when she arrives home with the news that her first husband Mr Haskett wants to assert his visiting right to see Lily, his daughter, who is critically ill.

Part II. Next day Waythorn encounters Alice’s second husband Gus Varick on the train going in to his office and sees him again in a restaurant at lunch time, savouring a liqueur in his coffee. He wonders if Haskett and Varick ever meet by accident in this way. That evening, after Haskett’s visit, Alice pour him a liqueur in his coffee by mistake.

Part III. Gus Varick visits Waythorn to negotiate some business, and behaves in a civilized and gentlemanly manner. Waythorn then encounters Haskett visiting Lily and is surprised that he is a shabby, down-at-heel, and rather inoffensive sort of man. He wonders what Alice’s former life when married to him could have been like.

Part IV. Haskett asks for a change of governess for Lily. Waythorn discovers that Haskett has made big personal sacrifices in order to remain close to his daughter – and that his wife has lied to him about Haskett. Meanwhile, Waythorn continues his amicable business relationship with Gus Varick and they even begin to socialize without difficulty. Waythorn sees his wife as a somewhat promiscuous woman.

Part V. Waythorn gradually accepts that he only has a ‘share’ in his wife’s life. At first he treats the situation satirically, but then realises that he has the advantages of what Alice has learned from her two previous marriages. Finally, on an occasion when Haskett is visiting Lily, Gus Varick arrives at the same time, and the three men sit smoking cigars, until they are joined by Alice, who serves them all tea.

Principal characters

Mr Waythorn	a New York businessman (35+)
Mrs Alice Waythorn	his wife, previously married to Mr Haskett and Mr Gus Varick
Lily Haskett	her sickly daughter, who does not appear
Mr Haskett	Lily’s father, Alice’s first husband
Gus Varick	Alice’s second husband
Mr Sellers	Waythorn’s senior business partner

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Partner

October 13, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Partner was written in 1911 and first published by J.M.Dent & Sons in the collection Within the Tides (1915). The other stories in this volume were The Planter of Malata, The Inn of the Two Witches, and Because of the Dollars.

The Partner – critical commentary

The narrative

It is worth stressing that the tale has two narrators – an un-named outer narrator who is a writer of some kind, and the inner narrator who at the start of the tale mentions going to London on business, but at the end is referred to as a ‘stevedore’.

The principal conceit of the tale is that during their ‘conversation’ the inner narrator is delivering the events of the narrative as the raw materials for a story he suggests the outer narrator can convert into a written account. The inner narrator also stresses that it is is a true story, rather than something that has been invented. Conrad (writing tongue in cheek as it were) has his outer narrator observe: “It’s said that truth is stranger than fiction.”

But an even greater irony of fictional construction is that the inner-narrator’s monologue is exactly what constitutes the story entitled The Partner. At the end of the tale the outer narrator claims that the incident was unsuitable for turning into fiction:

The story to be acceptable should have been transposed to somewhere in the South Seas. But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the consumption of magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak — just as it was told to me — but unfortunately robbed of the striking effect of the narrator;

This is rather typical of Conrad’s dry and lofty sense of humour – almost at his own expense – because in fact he successfully creates an impassioned narrator who delivers his tale in an authentically oral manner, with a great deal of the characteristics of casual saloon bar conversation, including a fractured chronology of events; a narrative almost indistinguishable from interpolated comment and reported speech; delivered in incomplete sentences; and with frequent use of the vivid present tense:

George had no children. Married a couple of years; looked forward to a kid or two very much. Feels more upset than ever. Talks about an honest man for a father and so on. Cloete grins: You be quick before they come, and they’ll have a rich man for a father, and no one the worse for it. That’s the beauty of the thing.

Narrative logic

The Partner is one of a number of Conrad’s tales (and novels) in which one character relates to another a series of events which involve a third character. One thinks of the sequence of information links in a novel such as Lord Jim for instance, where an un-named outer narrator relays a story told to him by the inner narrator Marlow, concerning events in the life of the eponymous Jim – some of which come from yet another source (Gentleman Brown). This is an extremely complex and often risky strategy which sometimes leads Conrad to the outer reaches of credibility and beyond – for instance in the case of Chance and Nostromo.

Fortunately in The Partner the logic of the information sources is kept just within the boundary of credibility. The outer narrator presents us with the extended monologue of the inner narrator, who knows the principal characters in the story. His main source of information is Cloete, who is present at almost all the events of the drama, and who has relayed the story to the inner narrator prior to his return to America.

The only crucial scene at which Cloete is not present is Stafford’s moral panic when he is locked in the captain’s cabin on the sinking Sagamore. This sequence of events (which Conrad presents as the climax of the tale) is revealed in Stafford’s dying confession to a dockyard priest – who in his turn relates it to the inner narrator (presumably violating any vows of confidentiality by doing so).

The Partner – study resources

The Partner – CreateSpace edn – Amazon UK

The Partner – CreateSpace edn – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook

The Partner – eBooks at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

The Partner – plot summary

An un-named narrator (‘a writer of stories’) is engaged in conversation with a somewhat desperate man of in the smoking room of a hotel at Westport on the English Channel. The writer sees the coastline and rocks outside in a romantic, painterly manner – but the man insists that the truth is quite otherwise. He then recounts in a fragmentary and telegraphic manner a tale which culminates with a shipwreck on the same rocks.

Two brothers, George and Harry Dunbar, are in a business partnership. They have bought the sailing ship Sagamore from its previous owners. Harry Dunbar is captain of the ship and George runs an import and export office in London . When a persuasive salesman called Cloete arrives from America with a few hundred pounds to invest, they make him a partner.

George has a young wife with expensive tastes. When his part of the business hits a period of recession, Cloete tries to persuade him to invest in a patent medicine venture. He first suggests selling the Sagamore, and then proposes deliberately wrecking it to claim the insurance money. George is indignant at this suggestion, but Cloete is persistent, and plays on George’s weakness.

Cloete has meanwhile located Stafford, a disgraced down-and-out seaman, who he persuades to take on the task of wrecking the ship in exchange for five hundred pounds. George claims that Harry will be going back to sea on the next voyage, and Cloete arranges for Stafford to join the ship as chief mate. On doing so, Stafford immediately tampers with the anchor cables.

Ten days later there are reports that the Sagamore has run aground on the rocks in a storm just outside Westport where the story began. Lifeboats have taken some people ashore, but captain Harry is still on board. Cloete thinks his scheme of wrecking the ship has been achieved providentially. He joins Harry and his skeleton crew on board the stricken ship, where the captain asks his ‘partner’ to recover a bag of golden sovereigns and some important papers from his cabin.

When Cloete goes below he is joined by Stafford, who now demands a thousand pounds for his work, otherwise he will disclose the plan of deliberate sabotage to the ship’s insurers. In response, Cloete knocks him down and locks him in the cabin of the sinking ship.

Returning empty-handed, Cloete gets into the lifeboat, so captain Harry goes to retrieve the papers and money himself. Amidst the confusion and the storm, Stafford suddenly appears alongside Cloete in the lifeboat. The coxswain of the lifeboat, sensing that something is wrong, goes back on board with Cloete to look for the captain. They find him dead from a gunshot wound in his cabin, surrounded by the ship’s papers which have been set alight.

When they return to shore Cloete billets Stafford in a nearby hotel and breaks the news to George Dunbar and Harry’s wife. George thinks they can now invest money in the patent medicine scheme, and Harry’s wife goes mad with grief. When Cloete goes back to the hotel, Stafford demands even more money and threatens to report Cloete for attempted murder. He relates how he shot captain Harry, thinking it was Cloete. But in response Cloete counter-threatens him, saying he will report him for murder during a robbery on board.

In the aftermath of the affair, there is not enough money to buy into Cloete’s patent medicine scheme, so other investors are found – and they make a fortune out of ‘Parker’s Lively Lumbago Pills’. Cloete is disillusioned and returns to America, and Stafford dies in an East End hospital.

Joseph Conrad – video biography

The Partner – principal characters

I	the un-named outer narrator
—	the un-named inner narrator
George Dunbar	import-export businessman
Harry Dunbar	his brother, captain of the Sagamore
Mr Stafford	a disgraced ex-mariner

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.
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Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim (1900) is the earliest of Conrad’s big and serious novels, and it explores one of his favourite subjects – cowardice and moral redemption. Jim is a ship’s captain who in youthful ignorance commits the worst offence – abandoning his ship. He spends the remainder of his adult life in shameful obscurity in the South Seas, trying to re-build his confidence and his character. What makes the novel fascinating is not only the tragic but redemptive outcome, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator Marlowe recounts the events in a time scheme which shifts between past and present in an amazingly complex manner. This is one of the features which makes Conrad (born in the nineteenth century) considered one of the fathers of twentieth century modernism.
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Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
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Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales

The Pension Beaurepas

January 13, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Pension Beaurepas was first published in the Atlantic Monthly for April 1879. It was later reprinted in book form, along with Washington Square, and A Bundle of Letters by Macmillan in London, 1881.

The Pension Beaurepas – critical commentary

The international element

This is another of James’s tales based on his favourite ‘international theme’ – that is the relationship between America and Europe. It is also concerned with a topic he was making his own around this time following the success of Daisy Miller the year before – the new American woman. The novelty here is that he presents not one but two American families – the Churches and the Rucks, who characterise two different aspects of Americans in Europe.

Mrs Church has exiled herself permanently to Europe – largely for financial reasons. She claims that she does not have enough money to return to the USA. But she is also culturally voracious, and wishes to enjoy the best of everything – a fact comically represented by her demanding higher and higher material standards at the pension Beaurepas, without paying any extra on her weekly rent.

This state of permanent exile is frustrating to her daughter Aurora, because she feels stifled by the social conventions which obtain in Europe. It is regarded dangerously improper for her to be in the English Garden with her temporary friend Sophy Ruck, because neither of them would be considered properly chaperoned. Worse than that, they join the company of two men – the narrator and Monsieur Pigeonneau – and rather innocently enjoy an ice cream together. Mrs Church disapproves so strongly that she intervenes and takes her daughter back home in a closed cab.

But Aurora is intelligent and well-informed enough to know that she would enjoy more personal liberty if she were to live in America. She is forthright, outspoken, and quite witty – but as a woman with a profession or money of her own, she must accept the social protection of her mother. However, she does have sufficient spirit to think of contacting the American consulate to help her get back home.

The Ruck mother and daughter on the other hand are simply examples of vulgar consumerism. Their only thought is to spend Mr Ruck’s money on jewellery and fripperies – at a point when the narrator believes he is in danger of becoming bankrupt because of the bad commercial climate back in the United States.

It is of interest to note that this tale is closely related to two others that James wrote around the same time – A Bundle of Letters (1879) and The Point of View (1882). They even have some characters in common. They also share a gently satirical tone and an episodic, unstructured composition.

There is almost no attempt to create any plot or even dramatic tension in The Pension Beaurepas. The narrator arrives at the Swiss pension and after describing the people he encounters, he departs for England unchanged. The two American families, the Churches and the Rucks, arrive, there is limited social interaction, and then the Churches leave for Dresden whilst the Rucks might – or might not – be on the point of returning to the USA. The tale is a lightweight and quite amusing study in manners, but lacks the density of a fully constructed narrative.

However, the tale takes on an extra layer of significance when it is read alongside its companion piece, The Point of View (1882). For in the later tale we learn that Aurora does in fact manage to travel back to America with her mother, and she knows that the search for a husband has failed because she has no dowry. Moreover, in her letter to a friend in Paris she reports that the Rucks (who are also on board) are now confirmed as bankrupt.

There were two literary experiments going on here at the same time. These are the only instances of James linking characters and story development between separate tales in this way, exploring the possibilities of a shifting point of view. And the two stories A Bundle of Letters and The Point of View are the only instances of his adopting the epistolary form of narrative.

The Pension Beaurepas – study resources

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle – Amazon UK

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle – Amazon US

Complete Stories 1884—1891 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Complete Stories 1884—1891 – Library of America – Amazon US

Tales of Henry James – Norton Critical Editions

The Pension Beaurepas – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Pension Beaurepas – story synopsis

Part I. A young and un-named American narrator with literary aspirations goes to live in a Geneva boarding house in order to see ‘life’ and gather experience of society whilst at the same time practising his French.

Part II. He is joined at the pension by Mr Ruck, an American businessman who has been ordered to take a holiday by his doctor, even though he would prefer to be back home, attending to his commercial interests in timber.

Part III. Mr Ruck’s wife and daughter Sophy deeply regret having left the glamour of staying in Paris, and they are intent on shopping for jewellery whilst in Geneva.

Part IV. They are joined at the pension by fellow Americans Mrs Church and her daughter Aurora who live in Europe permanently because they cannot afford to go home. Aurora yearns for her homeland, which she left as a child.

Part V. The narrator is interrogated by Mrs Church on the state of American youth and its ideals. He suggests letting Aurora return to America, but Mrs Church argues that they are very comfortable in Europe.

Part VI. Madame Beaurepas thinks that Mrs Church is parading her daughter around Europe in search of a bourgeois husband. The narrator talks to Mr Ruck about business back in America, which is not good, whilst Mrs Church and Sophy are shopping.

Part VII. The narrator and ageing womaniser M. Pigeonneau walk in the English Garden and eat ice cream with Sophy and Aurora. Their discussion is about correct behaviour for young women. Aurora is witty, but she feels restricted by social conventions and longs for the freedoms which living in America would afford her. Mrs Church arrives and immediately breaks up the gathering, with the implication that it is not proper.

Part VIII. The narrator and Mrs Church discuss the Rucks and their lack of sophistication. The narrator thinks that the wife and daughter are spending too much and that Mr Ruck is in danger of bankruptcy. It is also thought by both of them that Sophy is a bad influence on Aurora. Mrs Church tries to encourage Mr Ruck to leave the pension and go on to Chamonix

Part IX. Mrs Church tries, without success, to persuade Madame Beaurepas to evict the Rucks. Aurora and her mother leave the pension. The narrator and Mr Ruck encounter Mrs Ruck and Sophy in a jewellery shop, where they insist they want an expensive bracelet. But Mr Ruck announces that they are going back to New York. The narrator leaves the pension and goes to join his brother in London.

The Pension Beaurepas – characters

—	the un-named narrator, a young American
Madame Beaurepas	the proprietor of the pension (73)
Monsieu Pigeonneau	an ageing French womaniser and gallant
Mr Ruck	an American businessman
Mrs Ruck	his wife
Sophy Ruck	their pretty daughter (21)
Mrs Church	an American expatriate living in Europe
Aurora Church	her clever but homesick daughter

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

The Aspern Papers (1888) is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter. But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor. Money is also at stake – but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them. Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. This collection of stories also includes three of his accomplished long short stories – The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion.
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The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
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Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James – web links

Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.

The Complete Works
Sixty books in one 13.5 MB Kindle eBook download for £1.92 at Amazon.co.uk. The complete novels, stories, travel writing, and prefaces. Also includes his autobiographies, plays, and literary criticism – with illustrations.

The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.

The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.

Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.

Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.

The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.

The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.

Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.

Henry James on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of James’s novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production features, film reviews, box office, and even quizzes.

More tales by James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Point of View

January 16, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Point of View is rather unusual in Henry James’s oeuvre, in that it was first produced by Macmillan in London as a privately printed edition in 1882 for which James himself paid. He did this in order to protect his copyright to the text at a time before the introduction of international agreements between America and the United Kingdom, which did not come into force until the 1890s. The story first appeared in The Century Magazine in December 1882, then in single volume collections of his tales in 1883, followed by a Tauschnitz ‘European’ edition the following year.

Northumberland Hotel – Washington

The Point of View – critical commentary

Context

The Point of View is at face value nothing more than a collection of satirical sketches poking fun at various character types – the enthusiastic young woman (Aurora), the snobbish over-protective mother (Mrs Church), the jaded aesthete (Louis Leverett), the upper-class English bore (Mr Antrobus) – and so on. And their views of society on reaching America obviously reflect in exaggerated form some of James’s own ambiguous feelings about his native land and his ever-active interest in the relationship between Europe and America. But if the story is viewed in the context of the two tales that precede it – The Pension Beaurepas (1879) and A Bundle of Letters (1879) – it takes on a deeper set of meanings.

We know for instance from The Pension Beaurepas story that Aurora Church was feeling oppressed by the European conventions regarding young women in which her mother has held her trapped for most of her young life. She has been educated – in terms of art galleries and museums – but has never been allowed out alone even though she is of an age to marry.

She therefore sees America as the land of democratic freedom which will permit her to mix with whoever she wishes, and possibly find her own husband. The fact that she has failed to do so at the end of The Point of View does not invalidate the positive gesture in favour of the human spirit that her ‘escape’ from Europe represents.

Similarly, Louis Leverett, the over-developed art lover from the earlier story A Bundle of Letters expresses an almost hysterical hatred for the Boston hotel in which he finds himself. But we know from his appearance in A Bundle of Letters to be an over-refined name-dropping poseur – so his criticisms should not be taken at face value. In fact his characterisation seems to represent almost a satirical portrait of James himself – the American viewing his homeland after many years living in Europe.

But it is the sane and sober observations of the fifty year old Miss Sturdy which are probably a closer match to James’ own true views. In fact James also includes a cameo satirical portrait of himself in the letter of the french critic Gustave LeJaune reporting on the absence of American culture to a colleague back in Paris:

They have a novelist with pretensions to literature, who writes about the chase for the husband and the adventures of the rich Americans in our corrupt old Europe, where their primeval candour puts the Europeans to shame. C’est proprement écrit; but it’s terribly pale.

America – and Europe

And if you wish to see Henry James as a social and political prophet, you need look no further than these lines, penned by Marcellus Cockerel, a pro-Yankee character, tired of world travel, and glad to be back home:

Our salvation is here [in America], if we have eyes to see it, and the salvation of Europe into the bargain; that is, if Europe is to be saved, which I rather doubt.

Once one feels, over here, that the great questions of the future are social questions, that a mighty tide is sweeping the world to democracy, and that this country is the biggest stage on which the drama can be enacted, the fashionable European topics seem petty and parochial.

In England they were talking about the Hares and Rabbits Bill, about the extension of the County Franchise, about the Dissenters’ Burials, about the Deceased Wife’s Sister, about the abolition of the House of Lords, about heaven knows what ridiculous measure for the propping-up of their ridiculous little country. And they call us provincial!

Those words come from a story written one hundred and twenty seven years ago, but they might have been written last week.

[I have artificially created the three separate paragraphs in the quotation above for the sake of clarity. In the printed text there are no paragraphs. Each correspondent’s letter is a continuous block of text, with no paragraphs.]

The Point of View – study resources

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Complete Stories 1874—1884 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Complete Stories 1874—1884 – Library of America – Amazon US

Tales of Henry James – Norton Critical Editions

The Point of View – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Point of View – story synopsis

Part I. Aurora Church, a young American woman, is on a transatlantic liner, returning to the USA after an extended stay in Europe with her mother. She writes to a friend in Paris about her liberating sense of excitement of returning home, and the people she has met during the voyage. As a Europhile, her mother is not looking forward to the experience, and she has failed to find a husband for Aurora because she has no dowry. Aurora recounts how she has been pursued on board by Louis Leverett, a pretentious Bostonian would-be belle-lettrist and Mr Cockerel, an American lawyer who is resolutely pro-USA.

Part II. Having arrived in New York, Mrs Church writes to her Calvinist friend Madame Galopin in Geneva. She complains about the country in general and her lodgings in particular. She bemoans the lack of social distinctions and the fact that she cannot ascertain the incomes of the young men who are paying court to Aurora. She has agreed to let her daughter live by American standards for a test period of three months. Mrs Church’s manner is comically snobbish, convoluted, and self-regarding.

Part III. Miss Study, at Newport, writes to an American friend back in Florence. She sees the positives and the improvements in American life, and recounts her inviting the Englishman Mr Antrobus to stay at Newport. She is alert to the changes in American-English language, and she feels the predominance of American youth to be an overwhelming feature of modern life, and their propensity to talk a great deal, without being able to talk properly.

She notes that American girls are permitted social freedoms which would be denied to them in old Europe – and that society is the better for it. She admires the democratic spirit of her homeland, even though she admits it brings people to a less variegated common level than in Europe.

Part IV. Mr Antrobus writes from Boston to his wife back in England in a pompous and didactic manner, giving her a sociological account of his impressions. He is visiting schools and colleges, and even though he is supposed to be a radical (a liberal) he regrets that America does not have a class of aristocracy. He also travels with his own tin bath tub. He goes into comically excruciating detail about what might or could have been the case on every topic he discusses.

Part V. Louis Leverett, the Boston aesthete, writes to his friend back in Paris complaining bitterly about the conditions in his hotel and the absence of European sophistication that he has left behind. He argues that the democratic spirit of the USA reduces everything and everybody to an undistinguished mediocrity.

Part VI. The French critic Gustave LeJaune writes from Washington to his friend in Paris complaining about the size of the USA and the lack of manners in the general public. He is writing an official study of America as (the most important visitor since de Tocqueville). He complains about the lack of culture, the size and content of the newspapers, and the lack of social markers of distinction which permits a social free-for-all.

Part VII. The American Marcellus Cockerel returns after three years of touring the world and writes to his sister in California saying how pleased he is to be back in the USA, even if it is a vulgar society. He gives a jaundiced account of how much he hated being in Paris in particular, and vows that he will never return to Europe again. He excoriates the traditional pageantry and rituals of old Europe and argues that America is better off without them, no matter how much they are revered.

Part VIII. Aurora writes that she has come to the end of her three months of freedom, and has failed to meet anyone she would wish to marry. However, her mother has decided that they ought to move out to the West where is will be cheaper to live – and Aurora wonders if she might meet a rich Pioneer.

The Point of View – characters

Mrs Church	an American expatriate who has been living in Europe
Aurora Church	her daughter, a spirited young American woman
Miss Sturdy	a stout, single American spinster (50)
The Honorable Edward Antrobus MP	an English traditionalist and bore
Louis Leverett	a small Boston aesthete
M. Gustave LeJaune	a French social citic
Marcellus Cockerel	a patriotic Yankee

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.

The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.

The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.

Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.

Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.

The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.

The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.

Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.

More tales by James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Portrait

June 28, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Portrait first appeared in Edith Wharton’s collection of short fiction, The Greater Inclination and Other Stories published by Charles Scribner’s in 1899. It is one of a numbers of stories Edith Wharton wrote on the relationship between art and life. She published a similar story The Verdict only a few years later.

Leon Riesener – Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863)

The Portrait – critical comments

The story is not so much about painting as about Lillo’s empathetic wish to protect Miss Vand’s feelings. He knows he can capture Vand’s villainous character but delays completing the face in the portrait. When confronted by Miss Vand and the incomplete work, he realises that she understands why it has not been finished – because Lillo does not want to reveal to her the corrupt side of a father on whom she dotes.

So he produces an uncritical and lifeless piece of work instead. This explains the mystery raised in the first part of the story – how could a talented painter produce such an unsuccessful piece of work?

In fact the story is split exactly into two in terms of structure. In part one the narrator presents the puzzle of Lillo’s ‘failed’ portrait; then part two is a monologue in which Lillo (acting as a second narrator) reveals the reasons for his having deliberately created a bad painting, which he calls a ‘lucid failure’.

The Portrait – study resources

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Greater Inclination and Other Stories -Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Portrait – story synopsis

Opinions are divided on the merits of fashionable portrait painter George Lillo: some think he is too negative, others think he is searchingly realistic. His portrait of the notorious Alonzo Vard is considered a puzzling failure. Lillo invites the narrator to dinner, where he explains the provenance of this work.

Lillo has come from Paris to New York in the hope of doing something ‘big’ to establish a critical success. He is impressed by Vard°s dramatic appearance and his scandalous reputation as a powerful man of public affairs. He approaches Vard’s daughter, who worships her father and claims that all his finest qualities are only shown to her at home.

But when Lillo begins the portrait he realises that Vard is in fact shallow and vulgar, with no intellectual substance at all. He begins the portrait but is hesitant to present the truth because he doesn’t want to offend the doting daughter, who protectively attends all her father’s sittings.

Meanwhile Vard is involved in a political scandal which is reported by all the newspapers. On the day the news breaks, the sitting is interrupted by Vard’s secretary, who has arranged for his escape via a back door. Vard refuses to take it and walks out with his daughter on his arm.

There is a trial, and Vard is exonerated. Miss Vard visits the studio and sees the unfinished portrait. Lillo realises that she knows why it is incomplete. Later he feels obliged to finish off the painting in an anodyne manner so as not to offend her. This explains how and why he came to produce such a bad portrait.

Principal characters

George Lillo	a fashionable portrait painter
I	an un-named narrator – a friend of George Lillo
Alonzo Vard	a dubious businessman
Miss Vard	his devoted daughter

Edith Wharton’s 42-room house – The Mount

Other works by Edith Wharton

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Buy the book from Amazon US

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Pretext

July 4, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Pretext first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine number 44 for August 1908. It was then reprinted in a collection of Edith Wharton’s stories The Hermit and the Wild Woman which was published by Charles Scribner’s later the same year.

cover design by Parish Maxfield

The Pretext – critical commentary

This is a rather sad, bitter-sweet tale of lost hopes and unfulfilled dreams in which a middle-aged woman is caught up in a doomed romantic liaison with a much younger man. The principal points of interest are the poignant manner in which Margaret Ransom examines her own fading appearance in the light of her awakening passion for Guy Dawnish. She has lived so long in the stiflingly conformist atmosphere of her university town and its conventions that she can hardly believe either in the romantic sensations she is feeling or the very idea that she might be the love object of a much younger man.

When it is time for him to return to England she forestalls any overt declaration of love so as to preserve all its unspoken potential to savour after he has gone. She suspects, and we as readers are given every reason to believe, that he has an undeclared ‘attachment’ back in England. This turns out to be true – but is only confirmed when he breaks off this ‘engagement’ because of the reported ‘significant attachment’ which has occurred during his study visit in America.

The story is given its first ironic twist when his aunt arrives in search of the person who has caused such social havoc by distracting him from his social path – that person being Margaret herself. The aunt simply cannot believe that a middle-aged woman can be the object of her young nephew’s affections.

The story teeters very close to farce as the aunt invents more and more explanations to account for her bewilderment – all resting on mistaken identity. But finally, when Margaret reveals that she is the woman the aunt is looking for, she comes up with the explanation that gives the story it’s name – that Margaret has been used as a pretext to cover Guy’s real love interest.

And this finally is where the story is given its second and most heart-wrenching twist. Margaret is so under-confident that she herself accepts this explanation, not daring to believe that the romantic episode was a reciprocated experience. The story ends with the prospect of her dull suburban life stretching into an indefinite future.

The Pretext – study resources

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Greater Inclination and Other Stories -Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Pretext – story synopsis

Part I. Margaret Ransom is the middle-aged wife of a lawyer in a New England university town. She has become romantically excited during the previous two years by her contact with Guy Dawnish, a young visiting Englishman, but she feels the pressure to conform to the Puritan traditions of the town and it’s social norms.

Part II. Guy Dawnish has left her some personal photographs which emphasise his richly privileged English background. Margaret finds this romantic and fascinating. Dawnish is shortly due to return to England-and they are both invited to a university event where her husband will be speaking.

Part III. Feeling oppressed by her husband’s speech, she leaves the hall with Guy, and they confront each other romantically in a secluded spot by the river. Not knowing how to deal with the possibilities between them, she urges him not to name or reveal his feelings, but to preserve their unspoken understanding of each other as a potential to help her face the future.

Part IV. Guy goes back to England and writes polite letters. Margaret lives on her memories of their moments together. Then she hears from a friend visiting England that Guy has broken off a previous ‘understanding’ with an heiress because of an ‘unfortunate attachment’ he has formed during his American sojourn. Margaret regrets that she didn’t catch hold of her chance of happiness when it was presented to her.

Part V. Margaret tries to busy herself in university social life, but then she is visited by Guy’s forceful aunt Lady Caroline Duckett who has come to America to investigate the person who has caused Guy to give up his engagement and caused such social disruption within his family. The aunt cannot believe that Margaret (as a middle-aged woman) is the person responsible and eventually presumes that Guy has used Margaret’s name as a cover for an attachment to someone else. Margaret is so lacking in self esteem that she accepts this idea herself, and prepares herself for a life with all her romantic hopes extinguished.

Principal characters

Robert Ransom	university tutor in law
Margaret Ransom	his romantic wife
Guy Dawnish	young English academic visitor
Gwendolen Matcher	Guy’s ‘intended’ in England
Lady Caroline Duckett	Guy’s aunt from England

first English edition – Macmillan 1908

Other works by Edith Wharton

Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Princess Casamassima

May 20, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Princess Casamassima first appeared as monthly serial insallments in The Atlantic Monthly magazine between 1885 and 1886. It was published in book form as three volumes by Macmillan in 1886. The work is very unusual in James’s oeuvre in dealing with both the working classes and with revolutionary politics. It also features a character (the Princess) who had appeared as the American beauty Christina Light in Roderick Hudson, published ten years previously in 1875.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

The Princess Casamassima – critical commentary

The serial novel

Like most other nineteenth century novelists, James was accustomed to producing his novels first in the form of monthly magazine installments, then in book form – either as single or multiple volumes. The Princess Casamassima first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly over the space of a year in fourteen installments, then in three volumes, published by Macmillan in 1886.

It has to be said that one reason why the novel has not proved popular with general readers (or scholars) is that the pace of the narrative is glacially slow. Although there are sufficient characters and plot intrigue to provide psychological development and dramatic tension, much of the story is laboured beyond belief. It’s as if James felt uncomfortable with the subject he had chosen. It is also true that he was literally making up the story as he went along, having been held up in his writing schedule over problems with his previous novel The Bostonians which was published almost at the same time (1885-1886).

There is none of the light and shade or the dramatic tension one would expect in the serial form (as one gets to abundance in Dickens for instance). Journeys from one location to another are described in excessive detail; interaction between the characters is traced exhaustively, but does not lead anywhere (see below); and there is a great deal of repetition.

Politics

Conversely, many elements hinted at in the account of events, particularly related to the ostensible subject of social revolutionaries, are not actually realised. There are mentions of spies, informers, agents provocateur, hard-line anarchists, and police surveillance, but none of this is dramatised or even discussed by the principal characters.

One cannot expect James to be particularly well informed on matters of revolutionary politics, because very few people knew anything much about the subject at that time in the 1880s. It was generally assumed that revolutionaries were small, almost secret groups of bomb-throwing anarchists and desperadoes who had utopian dreams of dispossessing the rich and overturning society.

However, James did choose his subject consciously, so he must be held accountable for his failure to provide any knowledge of its workings. None of the meetings in the Sun and Moon are reported, and even the conversations of his two principal characters, Hyacinth and Paul, do not cover revolutionary politics or even social theory. Paul merely opines that ‘the democracy’ will eventually prevail, whilst Hyacinth volunteers for his fatal mission as an act of bravado.

However, James was not entirely unaware of the lives of lower-class people. His story In the Cage deals with the life and working conditions of a young woman who operates a telegraphy machine within a grocery store in London’s West End.

The Dickensian shadow

There are many elements of the novel that have powerful overtones of Dickens. For instance, Hyacinth’s melodramatic origins. He is the unrecognised bastard child of a French prostitute and an English Lord who has been raised by an impoverished dressmaker. His mother has murdered his father; and as a child Hyacinth is taken to a gruesome deathbed meeting with his mother in a prison.

Rosy Muniment, the irrepressibly cheerful invalid with a crippled spine who finds positives in everything that surrounds her is closely reminiscent of Fanny Cleaver (Jenny Wren) the doll’s dressmaker in Our Mutual Friend whose lament is “my back’s bad and my legs are so queer” and is unstoppably chirpy and optimistic, despite her disabilities.

Mr Vetch and Hyacinth are a very close parallel to Pip and Joe Gargery in Great Expectations. Mr Vetch does everything to protect and help Hyacinth get on in life, and is very loyal to his foster mother. When Hyacinth becomes involved with the aristocracy and develops snobbish and selfish values, Mr Vetch is uncomplaining and does not reproach an entirely unthankful protege – and even offers to lend him money from his hard-earned savings as Hyacinth is engaged in squandering his small inheritance on trips to Paris and Venice.

There is even direct reference to Dickens when Paul Muniment sees someone who reminds him of Mr Micawber.

Resolution

What reinforces this impression of torpor more than anything else is the fact that at the end of the novel there are so many unfinished or unresolved elements in the plot. We know that Hyacinth cannot contain the contradiction which exists within him – the pull between his love of ‘civilization’, luxury, plus an aristocratic lifestyle, and his fast-disappearing socialist sympathies. So he resolves the issue personally by shooting himself. But what happens to the other ‘revolutionaries’? We have no idea what happens to the Princess, to Paul Muniment, to Eustace Poupin, to Schinkel, or even to Hoffendahl’s plot to assassinate someone of importance.

Many of the other plot lines are also left in an unfinished or unresolved state. The relationship between Paul and Hyacinth is not brought to any closure – nor is Paul’s romantic dalliance with the Princess. We do not have any explanation for Mr Vetch’s unquestioning support for Hyacinth, even when he is betraying his own principles and drifting into a self-indulgent ‘appreciation’ of luxuries afforded to the upper class.

Even Hyacinth’s melodramatic origins are not resolved or examined in any way in the later parts of the novel. Where Dickens might have produced some sort of long-term dramatic connection resulting from this sexual link between upper and lower class, James leaves this whole melodramatic episode merely as a donnée to illuminate Hyacinth’s problematic origins. In a novel of this length and complexity, I think readers are entitled to expect resolutions or at least connections to be made between the various elements of the narrative. All we are given instead is a ‘surprise’ twist to the tale which is fairly easy to foresee and brings one of James’s longest novels to an abrupt and quite unsatisfactory stop.

The Princess Casamassima – Study resources

The Princess Casamassima – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Princess Casamassima – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Princess Casamassima – Digireads – Amazon UK

The Princess Casamassima – Digireads – Amazon US

The Princess Casamassima – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Princess Casamassima – Library of America – Amazon US

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

The Princess Casamassima – plot synopsis

Book First

Chapter I. Prison office Mrs Bowerbank visits poor dressmaker Miss Amanda Pynsent (‘Pinnie’) regarding a possible visit for her adopted son Hyacinth Robinson to see his mother, who is dying in prison where she has been confined for the previous nine years for murdering he lover Lord Frederick Purvis, who is Hyacinth’s father.

Chapter II. Pinnie seeks advice from her radical neighbour Theophilious Vetch. She worries about revealing to Hyacinth his true parentage. Mr Vetch takes a tough realistic view and thinks Hyacinth ought to know the truth.

Chapter III. Pinnie and Hyacinth visit the gloomy penitentiary, but the meeting between Hyacinth and his mother is a disaster. He does not like the prison and does not know why he is there. His mother thinks he hates her. He submits unwillingly to her brief embrace, then they leave

Chapter IV. Ten years later Pinnie receives a visit from Millicent Henning, Hyacinth’s childhood friend and the daughter of a dissolute neighbouring family who have been evicted. Millicent is now a pushy and vulgar young cockney woman. Pinnie thinks she made a grave mistake in taking Hyacinth to the prison; her business has declined, and she has fallen onto hard times.

Chapter V. Hyacinth arrives home. He has become a bookbinder, has taught himself French, and although physically slight is attractive. But he is bitterly conscious of his low status in life. He is attracted to Millicent and walks home with her. She asks him about his ‘family background’ and mocks his lowly status. Nevertheless, he arranges to see her again.

Chapter VI. In a narrative flashback, when Mr Vetch has a copy of Bacon’s Essays bound as a gift for Hyacinth, he meets French radical exile Eustace Poupin, whereupon the two families become weekend friends. Poupin finds a position for Hyacinth at the Soho bindery where he works and becomes his mentor.

Chapter VII. Under the influence of Poupin, Hyacinth tries to understand social class and the revolutionary ethos. Via meetings of radical sympathisers in the back room of the Sun and Moon pub in Bloomsbury, he meets Paul Muniment, who takes him home to meet his disabled sister Rosy, where they also meet Lady Aurora Langrish, an aristocratic do-gooder.

Chapter VIII. They discuss various degrees of radical ideas, ending with predictions on how the aristocracy might behave in the event of an uprising amongst the lower classes in England.

Chapter IX. Rosy recounts to Hyacinth the history of their relationship with Lady Aurora, the upper-class ‘saint’ who spends her time amongst the poor. Hyacinth is very impressed by Rosy as she recounts her family’s poor working-class background. She supports the oppressed but wants the aristocracy preserved. Hyacinth wants to know more about the ‘party of action’ from his friends, but Paul keeps him at arm’s length in a good-humoured way.

Chapter X. Some months later Pinnie is more than ever concerned about Hyacinth’s continuing relationship with Millicent. He sees the positive side of her vulgar plebeian nature, and seems unaware of any sexual attraction he might be feeling for her. He even visualises her in heroic fashion as Liberty leading the people at the barricades.

Chapter XI. Hyacinth continues his relationship with Millicent, despite her having no taste in anything beyond vulgar acquisitiveness. He meanwhile feels excluded from the aristocratic lifestyle to which he instinctively feels he has the right. This produces a dichotomy in his political allegiances which he cannot resolve. He eventually unearths the true story of his origins. He asks Mr Vetch to secure tickets for a show and is asked about his membership of the First International.

Book Second

Chapter XII. When Hyacinth takes Millicent to the theatre he meets Captain Sholto (an upper class fellow radical) who wants to introduce him to his friend the Princess Casamassima. Hyacinth is torn between feeling patronised and flattered.

Chapter XIII. When he joins the Princess and Madame Grandoni in their box he is overwhelmed by their aristocratic glamour. The Princess reveals that she sends Sholto out into society to bring her ‘interesting’ people to study. She wants to ‘understand’ the common people and believes that social revolution is bound to be imminent.

Chapter XIV. When Hyacinth reports these events to Paul, his friend refuses to trust or give any of his time to people he sees as his class enemies. He makes an exception for Lady Aurora because she makes a practical effort to help Rosy. Hyacinth takes Pinnie to see Rosy, who ‘commissions’ her to make a pink nightgown.

Chapter XV. Hyacinth compare political notes with Lady Aurora. She reveals her deep-seated antipathy to her own class and the effort it has cost her to break free of it. Paul arrives with Captain Sholto and reveals to Hyacinth that Sholto is merely a tout for the Princess, who he regards as a ‘monster’. Sholto then invites Hyacinth back to his rooms in Westminster where they discuss the Princess, who was expelled from her home by her husband, who now wants her back again.

Chapter XVI. Prince Casamassima arrives in London hoping to effect a reconciliation with his wife – but she refuses to see him. The Prince discusses the situation with Madame Grandoni, fearful that Christina will bring his illustrious name into disrepute. Hyacinth arrives, and Madame Grandoni warns him against his radical ideas and principles.

Chapter XVII. When the Prince arrives, the Princess first complains about her husband, then she asks Hyacinth to help her ‘know the people’. She outlines her own life history and how she despises the emptiness of the aristocracy. Finally she invites him to visit her in the country. Hyacinth binds a copy of Tennyson’s poems in her honour, but when he goes to deliver it she has left town.

Chapter XVIII. Madame Grandoni meets the Prince before leaving for the country. She explains that Princess Christina now thinks it was a mistake to marry for money and a title. She also realises that Christina now finds the Prince terminally boring. The prince quizzes her about Hyacinth and Sholto.

Chapter XIX. Pinnie uses the creation of the pink dressing gown as an excuse to cultivate Lady Aurora. Hyacinth finally calls on Lady Aurora to collect the French books she has promised to lend him. He is slightly amused that she wishes to explore ‘pauperism’, and she reveals that she thinks Captain Sholto is vulgar.

Chapter XX. Hyacinth is conscious of a double connection with the upper class – the Princess with whom he is a little in love, and Lady Aurora who he regards as a ‘saint’. He bumps into Sholto in a pub, and together they meet Millicent, with whom he has a lover’s tiff. Sholto takes them to a music hall, and Hyacinth wonders if there is a secret liaison between Sholto and Millicent.

Chapter XXI. Paul Muniment and Hyacinth are regarded as natural leaders amongst the radicals at the Sun and Moon in Bloomsbury. Paul is sceptical and taciturn, whilst Hyacinth is admired because of his mother’s tragic history. Hoffendahl, a famous German revolutionary is visiting London. He has been imprisoned and tortured, but has refused to name names. The local conspirators debate the ethics and the practical strategies of personal sacrifice. Hyacinth wonders why Paul does not take him more into his confidence. When a provocateur accuses them of cowardice, Hyacinth makes a defiant speech. Then Paul invites him and two others to meet Hoffendahl.

Book Third

Chapter XXII. Three months later Hyacinth visits Medley, the Princess’s rented estate in the country, and is impressed by its age and beauty. The Princess treats him lavishly, but he is conscious of the contradiction of her claiming to be concerned for the poor whilst living in a house with forty to fifty rooms. He has previously pledged himself to the revolutionary cause of Hoffendahl. When he mentions Lady Aurora, the Princess regrets that she is not the first titled lady he has known.

Chapter XXIII. After lunch Hyacinth goes for a drive with the Princess and Madame Grandoni, then at high tea more visitors arrive. The Princess puts pressure on him to stay. He explains that he needs to go back to work the next day, but she flatters him and persuades him to stay on.

Chapter XXIV. Next day the Princess quizzes him about his activities. He tells her he has pledged his life when it becomes necessary to act. The people at the Sun and Moon he now regards as inconsequential. He has been sold a vision of an international network of revolution about to be ignited. He claims to be cautious, but names everyone involved.The Princess reveals that she too knows Hoffendahl but has been kept at arm’s length because he doesn’t trust women. The Princess flatters Hyacinth, and he reveals his origins to her.

Chapter XXV. A few days later Hyacinth meets Captain Sholto with whom he has been in rivalry regarding Millicent. Sholto reveals that he doesn’t believe in the revolutionary cause at all, and is only interested in regaining his place close to the Princess, to whose every whim he panders.

Chapter XXVI. The Princess invites Sholto to say at Medley. He believes that Hyacinth will suffer at the hands of the Princess. Hyacinth realises that Sholto is an empty shell who fabricates the role of slave to the Princess because he has nothing else to do. The Princess is bored by his attentions, but tolerates him.

Chapter XXVII. Hyacinth returns home from Medley to discover that Pinnie is dying, attended by the devoted Lady Aurora. He thinks that people by now might know the ‘secret’ of his birth, but he is no longer concerned. He becomes painfully aware of the sordid living quarters in which he has been raised. Mr Vetch explains that Pinnie wanted Hyacinth left undisturbed whilst he enjoyed his high social connections. He offers Hyacinth money and takes an unquestioning fatherly interest in him.

Chapter XXVIII. Hyacinth tries to look after the dying Pinnie, who is pleased that he has made contact with the aristocracy. But she dies, leaving him all her meagre savings. Mr Vetch continues to be supportive, and Hyacinth realises that he owes him and Pinnie a debt of looking after them – and that this will not be possible if he should end up in jail. Pinnie has expressed the hope that Hyacinth would travel abroad – to Paris.

Book Fourth

Chapter XXIX. Following his inheritance and a further advance from Mr Vetch, Hyacinth visits Paris and thinks about his mother’s father, the revolutionary watch-maker who died on the barricades. He is seduced by the glamour and the luxury of the centre of modern civilization and feels distant from his socialist allegiances. He thinks he has an unbreakable bond to the Princess and yet still feels tied to Millicent.

Chapter XXX. Hyacinth continues to feel a slightly ambiguous admiration for his friend Paul Muniment. After Paris he travels to Venice, from where he writes to the Princess confessing his change of heart regarding the revolution. He now values the products of civilization too much to think of destroying them.

Chapter XXXI. When he returns to London, he finds that the Princess has gone. Feeling that he has spent his inheritance on an experience he wishes to share with her, he worries that she might have changed. He goes back to work reluctantly and begins to have literary aspirations. Mr Vetch supports him as ever, and he begins to feel distant from his fellow workers.

Chapter XXXII. When Hyacinth visits the Muniments, he finds the Princess there with Lady Aurora. She claims to have given up all her worldly goods, selling off everything to give to the poor. It is her idea of making a grand sacrifice.

Chapter XXXIII. Hyacinth walks with the Princess back to her small rented house in Paddington. She protests poverty but seems to have retained servants. Hyacinth thinks this is a fad which will rapidly fade away. She also claims that she admires Paul Muniment for not coming to visit her.

Chapter XXXIV. Hyacinth discusses the Princess with Lady Aurora, who is a great fan. They all meet for tea together in POaddington. The Princess offers to help Lady Aurora in her ‘work’ – albeit in a patronising manner. Nevertheless, the two aristocratic women seem to form a close relationship.

Chapter XXXV. Paul and Hyacinth one Sunday travel out to Greenwich, where Hyacinth asks Paul if he is in love with the Princess. Paul is evasive in reply, and they speak instead of Hyacinth’s ‘contract with Hoffendahl. Paul thinks it might not happen; the issue tests their friendship; and Paul jokingly calls Hyacinth a ‘duke in disguise’. Paul does not believe in ‘the millennium’ (violent revolution) but in ‘the democracy’.

Chapter XXXVI. Paul visits the Princess. She claims she wishes to help the ’cause’ and offers to replace Hyacinth in his contract with Hoffendahl. She also offers money, but Paul remains distant and sceptical, because he does not trust women.

Chapter XXXVII. The Princess receives Mr Vetch as a visitor. He finds it very difficult to say why he has come, except that it relates to Hyacinth. He wants Hyacinth to reconcile himself to society, and believes he no longer has such radical beliefs as previously. He believes that Hyacinth has fallen in with dangerous conspirators and is about to perform some sort of rash act. The Princess denies all knowledge of any such pledge. Mr Vetch feels responsible, because he introduced Hyacinth to the revolutionaries via Poupin. He also wishes to check with Paul Muniment, but the Princess appeals to him to leave Paul alone.

Chapter XXXVIII. Hyacinth binds books for the Princess and rises in status at the bindery. The Princess claims to have lost interest in this project and Hyacinth has to acquire more books ‘from store’ via her servant Augusta. He begins to feel that ‘the democracy’ will look after its own future, and continues to feel pulled between sympathy for his mother and his aristocratic father. Hyacinth and the Princess josh each other regarding their political commitments, and he suspects that she might be going ‘too far’. The Princess wonders if her ‘saint’ Lady Aurora might marry Paul Muniment, with whom she is in love.

Chapter XXXIX. Rosy Muniment also thinks her brother Paul ought to marry Lady Aurora, and that he ought to stay clear of the Princess. When Paul visits the Princess she flirts with him and tells him about Mr Vetch’s anxieties and suspicions. She asks Paul to dissuade Hyacinth from making his grand self-sacrifice. Paul says that such a decision is Hyacinth’s own business. They leave for a meeting and are spied upon and followed by her husband the Prince.

Chapter XXXX. The Prince visits Madame Grandoni and asks her for information on the Princess and Paul Muniment, suspecting his wife of having an affair. Madame Grandoni is divided in her loyalty, but she reveals that they are all involved in overthrowing society. The Prince wishes to avoid a ‘scandal’ since he is inordinately proud of his family name. When Hyacinth suddenly appears the Prince quizzes him about his political opinions and wants to know about the house the Princess and Paul have gone to. The conspirators return: Hyacinth is disturbed and goes home.

Chapter XXXXI. Hyacinth goes into Hyde Park on Sunday with Millicent. She chides him for his inconstancy, his anti-social ideas, and his relationship with the Princess. She also correctly assumes that Paul has replaced him in the affections of the Princess.

Chapter XXXXII. The same evening Hyacinth calls on Lady Aurora who is going out to a party and seems ready to rejoin her class. Then he goes to the Poupins where they are entertaining Schinkel.

Book Fifth

Chapter XXXXIII. Although they welcome Hyacinth, he feels that there is something ominous afoot. He demands to know what is happening. They reveal that they think he has given up the cause, and Schinkel has a letter for him. They argue inconsequently.

Chapter XXXXIV. Hyacinth goes out, followed by Schinkel, who tells him about having received a letter for him. Hyacinth takes the letter, but when he goes up to his room Mr Vetch is waiting for him, worried that he might be in trouble. Hyacinth promises him never to do anything to help the revolutionaries, and Mr Vetch leaves.

Chapter XXXXV. Next day Hyacinth goes to the Princess’s house, only to find that Madame Grandoni has gone back to Italy. The Princess arrives, and they have a disagreement about his commitment to the ’cause’. She tells him that Paul thinks his ‘grand sacrifice’ will not be called in, because he has obviously changed his political allegiance. He claims not to have changed at all.

Chapter XXXXVI. Paul visits the Princess to tell her that her husband is cutting off her allowance. He predicts that she will return to the Prince. He also reveals that Hyacinth has received instructions to assassinate somebody in a few days time at a grand party. The Princess claims she will try to carry out the act herself.

Chapter XXXXVII. Hyacinth has three days left. He decides he would like comfort from Millicent, but when he goes to the shop where she works, she is serving Sholto. He feels that if he carries out the assassination he will be following in his mother’s footsteps. The Princess arrives at Hyacinth’s lodgings to find Schinkel also waiting for him. They break down the door, to find that Hyacinth has shot himself through the heart.

First edition – Macmillan 1886

The Princess Casamassima – principal characters

I	an un-named narrator who occasionally appears
Miss Amanda Pynsent (‘Pinnie’)	an impoverished dressmaker, foster-mother to Hyacinth
Hyacinth Robinson	small, intelligent bookbinder of Anglo-French parentage
Mrs Bowerbank	a large woman who works as a prison officer
Millicent Henning	childhood playmate of Hyacinth who becomes a pushy cockney
Theophilous Vetch	a radical fiddle player and neighbour
Florence Vivier	a French prostitute, Hyacinth’s mother
Eustace Poupin	French republican exile and master bookbinder
Mr Crookenden	Soho bookbinder
Paul Muniment	a chemist’s assistant and radical, Hyacinth’s friend
Rosy Muniment	Paul’s sister, a cheerful invalid
Lady Aurora Langrish	tall, plain, ill-dressed aristocratic ‘socialist’
Lord Frederick Purvis (‘Robinson’)	Hyacinth’s murdered father
Princess Christina Casamassima	a beautiful American woman
Prince Casamassima	her estranged Italian husband
Captain Godfrey Gerald Sholto	a ‘cosmopolitan’ friend of the Princess
Madame Grandoni	German companion to the Princess – an old woman who wears a wig
Diedrich Hoffendahl	a German revolutionary (who does not actually appear)

Henry James – web links

Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.

The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.

The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.

Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.

Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.

The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.

The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.

Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.

More on Henry James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Razor

April 10, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Razor first appeared in September 1926 in the Russian emigré newspaper Rul’ published in Berlin. The paper had been established by Vladimir Nabokov’s father in 1921.

In his list of stories collected for publication in single volume form, Nabokov listed The Razor under the heading ‘Bottom of the Barrel’, but it seems to me no less worthy than many of the other shorter and lighter pieces from the early period of his output as a writer. His first novel, Mary was published the same year.

Vladimir Nabokov

The Razor – critical commentary

This is a short and relatively lightweight story – but it pursues its central conceit with admirable restraint and brevity. Every element in the dramatic situation raises the expectation that Ivanov will exact revenge. He has his adversary completely at his mercy. He is on his own, unobserved in the shop. The customer has put him through an ‘interrogation’ which he must have expected to lead to Ivanov’s death.

The artistic success of the tale lies not in the generation of tension – ‘don’t move please, or I might cut you prematurely’ – but in the fact that the customer never speaks. We can only imagine his terror. Even the details of the ‘interrogation’ are not dramatised – so we are spared any gruesome details, but by default encouraged to guess what they might be.

And in the end Ivanov does nothing, but simply dismisses his former tormentor. He triumphs over any desire for revenge. Technically, this is an anti-climax in the narrative, but in fact it is a very satisfying resolution.

Moreover, although the dramatic tension might seem rather artificial, the situation in the story is perfectly realistic. Berlin was the ‘first centre’ of emigration for Russians of both colours – Red and White – fleeing from the consequences of the 1917-1918 revolutions. Former aristocrats (like Nabokov himself) were forced to earn a living by doing menial jobs.

The Razor – study resources

The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov – Amazon UK

Zembla – the official Vladimir Nabokov web site

The Paris Review – 1967 interview, with jokes and put-downs

First editions in English – Bob Nelson’s collection of phtographs

Vladimir Nabokov at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Vladimir Nabokov at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study materials

Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, Princeton University Press, 1990.

Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, Princeton University Press, 1991.

Laurie Clancy, The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984.

Neil Cornwell, Vladimir Nabokov: Writers and their Work, Northcote House, 2008.

Jane Grayson, Vladimir Nabokov: An Illustrated Life, Overlook Press, 2005.

Norman Page, Vladimir Nabokov: Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1997

David Rampton, Vladimir Nabokov: A Critical Study of the Novels. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Michael Wood, The Magician’s Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Vladimir Nabokov: The Collected Stories – Amazon UK
Vladimir Nabokov: The Collected Stories – Amazon US

The Razor – plot summary

Ivanov is a White Russian emigré working in a barber shop in Berlin. His nickname as a military Captain had been ‘Razor’ because of his sharp features.

One quiet summer morning whilst the other staff are absent, a man comes into the shop for a shave. Ivanov recognises him as someone who has previously interrogated and (by implication) tortured him.

He shaves the man and menaces him by reminding him that a single slip of his razor would produce a lot of blood. He then proceeds to recount the events of his interrogation, all the while shaving his victim.

Ivanov reminds the man that both corpses and people sentenced to death are shaved, and asks him if he can guess what is going to happen next.

The man is clearly terrified, He keeps his eyes tightly shut and doesn’t utter a word. But Ivanov finally whisks the cloth from around his neck and bundles him out of the shop.

Other work by Vladimir Nabokov

Pnin is one of his most popular short novels. It deals with the culture clash and catalogue of misunderstandings which occur when a Russian professor of literature arrives on an American university campus. Like many of Nabokov’s novels, the subject matter mirrors his life – but without ever descending into cheap autobiography. This is a witty and tender account of one form of naivete trying to come to terms with another. This particular novel has always been very popular with the general reading public – probably because it does not contain any of the dark and often gruesome humour that pervades much of Nabokov’s other work.
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Collected Stories Nabokov is also a master of the short story form, and like many writers he tried some of his literary experiments there first, before giving them wider reign in his novels. This collection of sixty-five complete stories is drawn from his entire working life. They range from the early meditations on love, loss, and memory, through to the later technical experiments, with unreliable story-tellers and the games of literary hide-and-seek. All of them are characterised by a stunning command of language, rich imagery, and a powerful lyrical inventiveness.
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More on Vladimir Nabokov
More on literary studies
Nabokov’s Complete Short Stories

The Real Thing

January 25, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Real Thing was written in 1891 and first appeared syndicated in a number of American newspapers the following year: the Illustrated Buffalo Express, the Detroit Sunday News, the Indianapols News, the Louisville Courier-Journal, and the Philadelphia Enquirer. It also appeared in the English Black and White magazine at the same time. Its first appearance in book form was in The Real Thing and Other Tales published by Macmillan in 1893. It is worth noting that on its first appearance the tale itself carried illustrations, as was quite common with stories and serialised fiction at that time.

Victorian illustration

The Real Thing – critical commentary

This is a very popular, well-known, and much reprinted tale – possibly because it is so short, so touching, and because it seems to offer an easy glimpse into the theories of art that James wrote about so obscurely in the famous ‘Prefaces’ to the New York edition of his collected works.

Major and Mrs Monarch are truly pathetic figures. They are an upper-class ‘gentleman’ and ‘lady’ who have fallen on hard times after losing their money. They cling to their snobbish notions of class and status – yet they are virtually empty figures. The narrator conceives of them as the products of a purposeless, trite, and conventional lifestyle. They also naively believe that their sense of good manners and visual appeal are marketable commodities – but they are mistaken.

Their humiliating attempts to become useful to the narrator are given an excruciatingly ironic twist when they end up serving tea and acting as housekeepers – in place of the two lower-class figures of Miss Churm and Oronte, who successfully occupy the places as models the Monarchs were seeking.

At an artistic level, this is the ‘success’ of the tale. Major and Mrs Monarch think they are ‘the real thing’ as representatives of class types – and that they will be useful to the narrator in his work as an illustrator. But they lack plasticity; they can only ever be what they are – stuffed dummies with no character at all. Miss Churm and Oronte on the other hand are capable of becoming ‘suggestive’ for the narrator’s purposes, and are visually creative.

In other words, the story illustrates that a superficial appearance of being ‘the real thing’ is not sufficient to guarantee artistic success. The narrator’s drawings using the Monarchs as models are deemed a failure by his friend Jack Hawley and the publisher’s artistic director. But when he reverts to using Miss Churm and Oronte as models, he succeeds and gains the commission for the whole series of illustrated novels.

The Real Thing – study resources

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon US

The Real Thing – Classic Reprint edition

The Real Thing – Kindle edition

Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition

The Real Thing – eBook formats at Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Real Thing – plot summary

Chapter I. Major and Mrs Monarch arrive at the studio of the un-named narrator, a painter of portraits and a magazine illustrator. They are offering themselves as artists models, having fallen on hard times after losing their money. They perceive that there will be a demand for their ideal embodiment of a gentleman and a lady.

Chapter II. The narrator surmises that they are the product of ‘twenty years of country-house visiting’ – pleasant but empty characters. They have heard that the narrator will be illustrating the first volume of a deluxe edition of an important writer’s work, and they assume that he will need models to illustrate fashionable society types. The narrator is hesitant, but they are desperate and persistent. Whilst there, they disapprovingly meet the narrator’s cockney employee, Miss Churm who is lower-class but a very successful model.

Chapter III. The narrator uses Miss Churm, who can adapt herself to whatever is required, whilst Major Monarch desperately tries to make himself useful around the studio. But when Mrs Monarch tries to be a model she is too stiff, and is always the same, whereas Miss Churm can become any number of different types. But when the narrator asks Miss Churm to make them all tea, she resents the implied demotion in her status. Suddenly an Italian street vendor turns up, looking for work. The narrator takes him on first as a model and then as housekeeper.

Chapter IV. The drawings the narrator produces using the Monarchs as models all look exactly the same, whereas Miss Churm and the Italian Oronte lend themselves to his invention. He begins to work on the first novel for the deluxe edition – Rutland Ramsay. His friend fellow painter Jack Hawley dismisses the illustrations featuring the Monarchs as rubbish, and the publisher doesn’t like them either. So whilst the narrator poses Oronte as a model, the Monarchs make tea, in a reversal of roles. The narrator hints to the Monarchs that they are no longer required, but they return, only to offer their services to him as servants. The narrator accepts this arrangement, but then pays them off. He obtains the commission for the remaining books in the series, and feels he has had an interesting experience.

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

Principal characters

Major Monarch	a tall English former soldier and a ‘gentleman’ (50)
Mrs Monarch	his smart wife of 40, with no children
I	the un-named narrator, a painter and illustrator
Miss Churm	a cockney artist’s model
Oronte	an Italian street pedlar and model
Jack Hawley	an artist, the narrator’s friend
Claude Rivet	a painter, the narrator’s friend

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

The Bostonians (1886) is a novel about the early feminist movement. The heroine Verena Tarrant is an ‘inspirational speaker’ who is taken under the wing of Olive Chancellor, a man-hating suffragette and radical feminist. Trying to pull her in the opposite direction is Basil Ransom, a vigorous young man to whom Verena becomes more and more attracted. The dramatic contest to possess her is played out with some witty and often rather sardonic touches, and as usual James keeps the reader guessing about the outcome until the very last page.
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What Masie Knew (1897) A young girl is caught between parents who are in the middle of personal conflict, adultery, and divorce. Can she survive without becoming corrupted? It’s touch and go – and not made easier for the reader by the attentions of an older man who decides to ‘look after’ her. This comes from the beginning of James’s ‘Late Phase’, so be prepared for longer and longer sentences. In fact it’s said that whilst composing this novel, James switched from writing longhand to using dictation – and it shows if you look carefully enough – part way through the book.
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Henry James – web links

Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.

The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.

The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.

Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.

Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.

The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.

The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.

Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.

More tales by James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Archives for 2014

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Muse’s Tragedy – critical commentary

The Muse’s Tragedy – study resources

The Muse’s Tragedy – plot summary

The Muse’s Tragedy – Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Other Two – critical commentary

The Other Two – study resources

The Other Two – plot synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Partner – critical commentary

The Partner – study resources

The Partner – plot summary

Joseph Conrad – video biography

The Partner – principal characters

Further reading

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Pension Beaurepas – critical commentary

The Pension Beaurepas – study resources

The Pension Beaurepas – story synopsis

The Pension Beaurepas – characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Point of View – critical commentary

The Point of View – study resources

The Point of View – story synopsis

The Point of View – characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Portrait – critical comments

The Portrait – study resources

The Portrait – story synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Pretext – critical commentary

The Pretext – study resources

The Pretext – story synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Princess Casamassima – critical commentary

The Princess Casamassima – Study resources

The Princess Casamassima – plot synopsis

The Princess Casamassima – principal characters

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Razor – critical commentary

The Razor – study resources

The Razor – plot summary

Other work by Vladimir Nabokov

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Real Thing – critical commentary

The Real Thing – study resources

The Real Thing – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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