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The Madonna of the Future

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

The Madonna of the Future first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for March 1873. It was reprinted two years later as part of James’s first book, The Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales, published by Osgood in Boston, 1875. It became a very popular tale and was frequently reprinted in collections of James’s stories.

The Madonna of the Future

Raphael – The Madonna of the Chair (1513-1514)

The Madonna of the Future – critical commentary

James wrote a number of stories about art, artists, their achievements, and their reputations – both whilst alive and after their death. The Madonna of the Future is about a would be artist. Theobald has an enormous reverence for the world of Art, and Italian Renaissance painters in particular. He is well informed about the history and the technical details of what they have produced.

He takes what we would now call a high romantic view of art – that an appreciation of its values offers entrance into a quasi-religious and transcendental realm which can sustain the individual even whilst they might live in reduced circumstances or even poverty. This is a view of art which John Carey discusses at some length in his study What Good are the Arts?

Theobald has worshipped at this shrine of art for years and years – and he gives a very persuasive account of his enthusiasms in the face of the narrator’s more sceptical, materialist view of art appreciation. But there are two problems with Theobald’s position. The first is that he has no real creative life force, and the second is that he has been living ‘in denial’ with his plan for the ultimate art work.

His idea for the ideal Madonna has been gestating for two decades, but no fruit has been borne. And this is reflected in his relationship to Serafina. She might have been a virgin-like Madonna (with child) when he first met her, but now she is an old woman. She clearly gets by via her association with ‘visiting gentlemen’ – which is perhaps as close as James could come in the 1870s to implying that she was a prostitute.

What makes the story admirable is the well-sustained pathos of Theobald’s characterisation, and his ultimate tragedy in defeat of an unrealised dream. There is no bitterness or schadenfreude in the story. Mrs Coventry is quite right: Theobald has been telling everybody about his grand scheme, but has produced nothing.

Yet the fact that the narrator follows him into his dream and into his poverty lends a sympathetic pathos to this character sketch of a clearly deluded man. James wrote about artists who could not paint, authors who could not write, great thinkers who could only talk – and yet he was enormously productive himself, for the whole of his fifty year creative life span.

The Madonna of the Future – study resources

The Madonna of the Future The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Madonna of the Future The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

The Madonna of the Future Complete Stories 1864—1874 – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Madonna of the Future Complete Stories 1864—1874 – Library of America – Amazon US

The Madonna of the Future The Madonna of the Future – eBook formats at Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Red button Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Madonna of the Future

The Madonna of the Future – plot summary

An un-named outer-narrator relays the account of an inner-narrator (H—) in which he describes a youthful visit to Florence. When viewing the sculptures in the Palazzo Vecchio, he is accosted by Mr Theobald, a man who enthuses about the spirit of the place and its general artistic heritage. He is an American and claims to be an artist with standards so fastidious that he has not sold or kept a single picture.

Next day the narrator meets him again in the Uffizi gallery. Theobald continues to rhapsodise about Art, and when they proceed to the Pitti Palace the narrator himself is full of enthusiasm for Raphael’s picture The Madonna of the Chair. Theobald takes an idealist, almost metaphysical view of art criticism, whereas the narrator offers a more materialist interpretation of the picture – that pretty young women were fashionable at the time the portrait was painted. Theobald’s reply to this becomes a prescription for what could be done in the present historical phase. The narrator guesses that he is in fact describing his own aspirations.

The two men meet every day for the next fortnight, and the narrator continues to be astonished by Theobald’s enthusiasm, his knowledge, and his commitment to the world of high Art.

However, Mrs Coventry, a long-time American resident and patronne in Florence informs the narrator that Theobald is a talentless dreamer in whom people have given up believing. He claims to be painting a Madonna which will be a composite of all previous masterpieces of the Italian school.

The narrator invites Theobald to an opera, but he refuses and instead invites the narrator to meet Serafina, the most beautiful woman in Italy, who acts as his model. The narrator is disconcerted to find that she turns out to be an unexceptional and rather stout woman who is no longer young. Theobald reveals that she was an unmarried mother who he rescued and has maintained ever since, following the death of her child. He is also shown Theobald’s portrait sketch of the child, which he admires.

When Theobald asks the narrator his opinion of Serafina, he tells him quite honestly that she is old. This stark honesty shocks Theobald, who realises that he has spent years deceiving himself. The narrator feels slightly guilty for bringing him to this realisation, and encourages him to finish the long-awaited portrait of Serafina as Madonna. Theobald is crestfallen, but vows to finish it in a fortnight.

Theobald then disappears, so the narrator goes back to Serafina’s apartment in order to locate him. She is entertaining another man – who is a vulgar and pretentious artist of trashy objects. Serafina defends Theobald as an honourable friend of twenty years standing, and gives the narrator his address. The other visitor tries to sell the narrator the tasteless statuettes he makes.

When the narrator visits Theobald, he finds him in miserably poor conditions, He is also paralysed with inactivity in front of an empty canvas. He realises that for all his theorising, he has no creative power whatever. The narrator looks after him, but he collapses in a brain fever and dies. After the funeral, the narrator meets Serafina in a church, where she implicitly reveals to him that she is a prostitute.

Principal characters
I the un-named outer narrator
H— the inner-narrator
Mr Theobald an American art enthusiast
Mrs Coventry an American patroness of art in Florence
Serafina Theobald’s ideal woman
— an ‘artist’ of kitsch rubbish statuettes

The Madonna of the Future - Henry James portrait

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

Further reading

Biographical

Red button Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Red button F.W. Dupee, Henry James: Autobiography, Princeton University Press, 1983.

Red button Leon Edel, Henry James: A Life, HarperCollins, 1985.

Red button Philip Horne (ed), Henry James: A Life in Letters, Viking/Allen Lane, 1999.

Red button Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, Adamant Media Corporation, 2001.

Red button Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999

Red button F.O. Matthieson (ed), The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Critical commentary

Red button Elizabeth Allen, A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James London: Macmillan Press, 1983.

Red button Ian F.A. Bell, Henry James and the Past, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.

Red button Millicent Bell, Meaning in Henry James, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993.

Red button Harold Bloom (ed), Modern Critical Views: Henry James, Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.

Red button Kirstin Boudreau, Henry James’s Narrative Technique, Macmillan, 2010.

Red button J. Donald Crowley and Richard A. Hocks (eds), The Wings of the Dove, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978.

Red button Victoria Coulson, Henry James, Women and Realism, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Red button Daniel Mark Fogel, A Companion to Henry James Studies, Greenwood Press, 1993.

Red button Virginia C. Fowler, Henry James’s American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas, Madison (Wis): University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.

Red button Jonathan Freedman, The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Red button Judith Fryer, The Faces of Eve: Women in the Nineteenth Century American Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976

Red button Roger Gard (ed), Henry James: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1968.

Red button Tessa Hadley, Henry James and the Imagination of Pleasure, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Red button Barbara Hardy, Henry James: The Later Writing (Writers & Their Work), Northcote House Publishers, 1996.

Red button Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A study of the short fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Red button Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James, University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Red button Colin Meissner, Henry James and the Language of Experience, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Red button John Pearson (ed), The Prefaces of Henry James, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

Red button Richard Poirer, The Comic Sense of Henry James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Red button Hugh Stevens, Henry James and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Red button Merle A. Williams, Henry James and the Philosophical Novel, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Red button Judith Woolf, Henry James: The Major Novels, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Red button Ruth Yeazell (ed), Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Longmans, 1994.

Other works by Henry James

Henry James The BostoniansThe 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 from the South 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.

The Madonna of the Future Buy the book at Amazon UK
The Madonna of the Future Buy the book at Amazon US

Henry James What Masie KnewWhat 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.
Henry James What Masie Knew Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James What Masie Knew Buy the book at Amazon US

Henry James The AmbassadorsThe Ambassadors (1903) Lambert Strether is sent from America to Paris to recall Chadwick Newsome, a young man who is reported to be compromising himself by an entanglement with a wicked woman. However, Strether’s mission fails when he is seduced by the social pleasures of the European capital, and he takes Newsome’s side. So a second ambassador is dispatched in the form of the more determined Sarah Pocock. She delivers an ultimatum which is resisted by the two young men, but then an accident reveals unpleasant truths to Strether, who is faced by a test of loyalty between old Europe and the new USA. This edition presents the latest scholarship on James and includes an introduction, notes, selected criticism, a text summary and a chronology of James’s life and times.
Longstaff's Marriage Buy the book at Amazon UK
Longstaff's Marriage Buy the book at 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.

© Roy Johnson 2013

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

The Man who Disappeared (Amerika)

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tutorial, characters, commentary, study notes, reading

The Man who Disappeared (1913) (also known as Amerika) was Kafka’s first attempt at a novel, and like most of his others, with the exception of The Trial, it was left unfinished. He began writing it (for the second time) in 1912, then broke off to compose Metamorphosis and apart from producing a couple of subsequent fragments he never returned to it. Only the much anthologised first chapter, The Stoker was published in Kafka’s lifetime, in a collection of modernist texts edited by Kurt Wolf in 1913.

Readers expecting the usual Kafkaesque elements of existential terror and bureaucratic nightmares will be surprised and maybe delighted to discover that the story is a light-hearted and at times quite amusing fantasy of a young German boy at large in the USA.

Needless to say, Kafka had never been anywhere near America, and his account of it is entirely constructed from clichés of the New World – skyscrapers, non-stop traffic, and at times some Keystone Cops chase scenes.

The Man who Disappeared – commentary

The Man who DisappearedThe novel is an ironic reversal of the rags to riches story that is normally attached to immigration from the Old World to the New. Karl Rossman manages to go from riches to rags. He starts off with a wealthy and powerful uncle who showers him with luxury, but by the end of the narrative he has nothing, he is searching for work, and he is mixing with criminals and a prostitute. It is worth noting that Karl is not exactly an innocent abroad. He has been expelled from his family home following a sexual dalliance with an older servant woman that resulted in her bearing a child. So although he is only seventeen (or even fifteen) years old, Karl is in fact himself a father.

Authority figures

The authority figures in each chapter appear in pairs. When Karl becomes involved in the defence of the stoker and his claims of ill-treatment, it is to the ship’s Captain and the ship’s Purser that he is answerable and who challenge his actions and question his motivation.

His uncle Edward’s business associates are Mr Pollunder and Mr Green, both of whom have power over Karl. It is the invitation from Pollunder which displeases Karl’s uncle, and Mr Green who carries the letter which contains the orders of dismissal that expel Karl from his newfound paradise in New York.

He immediately falls into the hands of Robinson and Delamarche, who take advantage of his naivete and bully him into becoming virtually their servant. Interesting to note also that these authority figures are usually slightly different – of what we might now call the ‘good cop, bad cop’ kind. One of them will pretend to befriend Karl, the other will resort to naked threats. Karl tries to resist them both, but fails.

When he is disciplined for a minor infraction of discipline at the Hotel Occidental, it is the Head Waiter and Head Porter who perform this same dual function

Women

The women in the story are either all-embracing mother figures, sexual predators, or vulnerable waifs.

Grete Mitzelbach offers Karl somewhere to sleep when he is in need; she secures him a job; and she offers her support when he is being threatened with dismissal at the hotel. In fact she also recommends him to another employer.

On the other hand Johanna Brummer, the thirty-five year old servant woman who seduces the fifteen (or seventeen) year old Karl does so in a comically grotesque manner – but one which Karl finds ‘disgusting’. Klara, Mr Pullender’s daughter, appears to be a a more sympathetic figure, but she ends up attacking Karl physically, then invites him to her room – but only to reveal her sexual connection with Mr Mack, the millionaire’s son.

Delamarche’s mistress Brunelda is almost a grotesque parody of a sluttish courtesan:

Her red dress was rucked up at the front and a long stretch of it hung down to the floor, her legs were visible almost to the knees, she was wearing thick white woollen stockings, and had no shoes on.’How hot it is, Delamarche,’ she said, turning her face from the wall and holding her hand negligently in front of Delamarche, who seized and kissed it.

Terese and Fanny are waif figures, with Terese offering a particularly poignant version of the emigrant’s story, searching for work with her mother, who is eventually killed in an accident on a building site.

Visions of America

Following the Second World War, images of America were widely manifest in Europe and the rest of the world via radio, newspapers, and cinema – but at the time that Kafka was writing in 1912 it would be literally Another Country to him, an unknown and exotic place (even though it was a place to which many Europeans were emigrating). Given this, and the fact that he had obviously never been there, it is surprising that he captures so much of its essence in images of very tall buildings (skyscrapers), the grid system of straight roads, of people living in tenement blocks, and the non-stop traffic.

There is also a passage describing a mechanical desk in Uncle Edward’s office which is strangely prophetic:

On its top part, for example, it had a hundred drawers of various sizes, and even the President of the Union could have found a suitable place for every one of his files, but in addition it had a regulator at the side, and by turning the handle one could rearrange and reorganize the drawers in a great variety of ways according to one’s wishes and needs. Thin side partitions slowly descended and formed the base or the top of new drawers that rose up, a single turn of the handle gave the top a quite different appearance, and everything happened slowly or with wild rapidity, depending on how you turned the handle. It was a brand new invention …

This is amazingly prescient of the Memex machine that Vanevar Bush described in imagining computers and hypertext in his 1945 article As We May Think:

A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications … Most of the contents are purchased on microfilm, ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place.

If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions … Any given book from his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf.

Study resources

The Man who Disappeared The Man who Disappeared – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Man who Disappeared The Man who Disappeared – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Man who Disappeared Amerika: The Man who Disappeared – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Man who Disappeared Amerika: The Man who Disappeared – Schocken Books – Amazon UK

Red button Kafka: A Very Short Introduction – OUP’s mini series

Red button The Stoker – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg (in German)

Red button The Complete Novels of Kafka – Vintage Classics edition – Amazon UK

Principal characters
Karl Rossmann a seventeen or fifteen year-old German boy from Prague
Johanna Brummer thirty-five year-old servant who seduces Karl
Jakob Karl and Johanna’s son
Butterbaum Karl’s fellow traveller on the ship
— The ship’s stoker
— The ship’s captain
Schumbal the Romanian chief engineer
— The ship’s chief purser
Senator Edward Jakob Karl’s uncle, a rich businessman
Mr Pollunder a banker and business associate of Karl’s uncle
Klara Pollunder his daughter
Mr Mack Jnr son of a millionaire, fiancé to Klara
Mr Mack Snr millionaire head of a large building firm
Mr Green gross, bachelor business associate of Karl’s uncle
Robinson an Irish hypochondriac
Delamarche a French bully
Grete Mitzelbach Head Cook at the Hotel Occidental (50)
Terese Berchtold secretary to the Head Cook (18)
Giacomo lift boy at the Hotel Occidental
Rennel lift boy at the Hotel Occidental
Bess chief lift boy at the Hotel Occidental
Isbary head waiter at the Hotel Occidental
Feodor head porter at the Hotel Occidental
Brunelda Delamarche’s mistress, a fat ex-singer
Joseph Mendel a student in Delamarche’s apartment block
Fanny Karl’s trumpet-playing friend
Photomontage

Kafka, family photos, and old Prague

The Man who Disappeared – plot summary

Karl Rossman arrives in New York, having been sent abroad by his parents following an incident with an older servant that resulted in the birth of a son. Karl goes back into the ship to retrieve his umbrella and meets the ship’s stoker, who complains about his treatment on board. Karl accompanies him to plead his case with the ship’s captain. There he meets his uncle Edward Jakob, who is now a rich businessman and a Senator.

Karl lives with his uncle for two months, takes English and riding lessons, and is provided with a piano. He meets a millionaire’s son, Mr Mack, and is invited to the home of banker Mr Pollunder, although his uncle disapproves of the visit.

At Mr Pollunder’s country house Karl is oppressed by the behaviour of his business associate Mr Green, and then is subject to a physical attack by Klara, Mr Pollunder’s daughter.. When he decides to return to his uncle’s house, many obstacles are put in his way to delay his return. It is revealed that Mr Mack is Klara’s fiancé. Finally, Mr Green presents Karl with a letter from his uncle disowning him for going against his wishes. Mr Green gives Karl a train ticket to San Francisco (which he never uses).

Karl meets two unsavoury characters Robinson and Delamarche who take advantage of him. They set off in search of work, eat at his expense, and steal his belongings. Karl escapes from them, and arrives at the Hotel Occidental, where he is befriended by Grete Mitzelbach the head cook and invited to stay for the night.

The cook arranges for Karl to be a lift boy at the hotel. He works twelve hour shifts and sleep in a dormitory filled with smoke, noise, and lift boys boxing and wrestling. Karl befriends Terese, the cook’s secretary, who recounts her difficult life and her mother’s death as poor emigrants.

Robinson reappears at the hotel drunk, and vomits into the stair well. Karl offers him money to leave and puts him into his own bed to sober up. But this briefly takes Karl away from his post on the lifts, for which misdemeanour he is interviewed by the head waiter and head porter, then sacked, despite pleas from his friend the head cook. Karl is physically bullied by the head porter, but finally manages to escape from the hotel – only to find Robinson waiting for him again.

Karl and Robinson are driven to a tenement building where Delamarche is living. There is an altercation involving the police, from which Karl escapes again, only to be rescued by Delamarche and taken back to a squalid and cramped apartment where he lives with Brunelda, a fat ex-singer. Robinson complains about the skivvy work he does for Delamarche and Brunelda, and reveals that they plan to make Karl their servant. They all watch a political rally and procession from the balcony of the apartment. Karl then makes another attempt to escape, which ends up in a fight. He then has a conversation with a student on an adjacent balcony, who advises him to stay with Delamarche.

Novel fragments

Robinson and Karl prepare breakfast for Delamarche and Brunelda in the late afternoon, amidst the squalor of the apartment.

Karl departs with Brunelda, who is hidden under a blanket on a cart.

Karl enrolls in the Theatre of Oklahoma where he meets an old friend Fanny who is playing a trumpet to welcome newcomers. He goes through a complex and bureaucratic recruitment process and is taken on as a technician. At a feast for new recruits he meets his fellow lift boy Giacomo from the Hotel Occidental. They travel by train for two days towards Oklahoma.

Kafka’s writing

Franz Kafka - manuscript page

a page of Kafka’s manuscript

Franz Kafka: An Illustrated LifeFranz Kafka: Illustrated Life This is a photographic biography that offers an intimate portrait in an attractive format. A lively text is accompanied by over 100 evocative images, many in colour and some previously unpublished. They depict the author’s world – family, friends, and artistic circle in old Prague – together with original book jackets, letters, and other ephemera. This is an excellent starting point for beginners which captures fin de siecle Europe beautifully.

Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

Further reading

Red button Jeremy Adler, Franz Kafka (Overlook Illustrated Lives), Gerald Duckworth, 2004.

Red button Mark Anderson. Kafka’s Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Siecle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992

Red button Louis Begley, The Tremendous Words I have Inside my Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay, Atlas Illustrated editions, 2008.

Red button Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka: Modern Critical Essays, New York: Chelsea House, 1986.

Red button Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka (Bloom’s Major Novelists), Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.

Red button Elizabeth Boa, Kafka: Gender, Class, and Race in the Letters and Fictions, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Red button Max Brod, Franz Kafka: A Biography, Da Capo Press, 1995.

Red button Max Brod (ed), The Diaries of Franz Kafka, Schocken Books, 1988.

Red button Elias Canetti, Kafka’s Other Trial: The Letters to Felice, Schocken Books, 1989.

Red button Stanley Corngold, Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka, Princeton University Press, 2006.

Red button W.J. Dodd (ed), Kafka: The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, London: Longman, 1995.

Red button Carolin Duttlinger, Kafka and Photography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Red button Angel Flores (ed), The Kafka Debate, New York: Gordian Press, 1977.

Red button Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka (Critical Lives), Reaktion Books, 2007.

Red button Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient, London: Routledge, 1995.

Red button Ronald Gray, Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall, 1962.

Red button Ronald Hayman, A Biography of Kafka, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.

Red button Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks, Exact Change, 1998.

Red button Franz Kafka, The Trial (Complete Audiobooks), Naxos Audiobooks, 2007.

Red button David Zane Mairowitz, Introducing Kafka, Icon Books, 2007.

Red button Julian Preece (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Kafka, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Red button Ronald Spiers, and Beatrice Sandberg, Franz Kafka, London: Macmillan, 1997.

Red button Walter H. Sokel, The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka, Wayne State University Press, 2001.

Red button Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Red button Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press, 1987.

Red button James Rolleston (ed), A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka, Camden House, 2006.

Red button Michael Wood, Franz Kafka (Writers and Their Work), Northcote House, 1998.

 

Mont Blanc pen - Kafka edition

Mont Blanc – special Franz Kafka edition

Other works by Franz Kafka

MetamorphosisMetamorphosis (1915) is truly one of Kafka’s masterpieces – a stunning parable which lends itself to psychological, sociological, or existential interpretations. It’s the tale of a man who wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. His family are horrified, gradually disown him, and he dies of neglect, with a rotting apple lodged in his side. Franz Kafka is one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early twentieth century. He was a novelist and writer of short stories whose works came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of twentieth century literature.

Franz Kafka Metamorphosis Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka Metamorphosis Buy the book at Amazon US

The TrialThe Trial is Kafka’s one indisputably successful novel – a haunting and original study in existential anxiety, paranoia, and persecution. Joseph K is accused one day of being guilty – but not told what crime he has committed. He wrestles hopelessly with legal officials and a nightmare-like court which acts on arbitrary rules, striving to find justice. In the end he fails, only to be killed ‘like a dog’. Kafka gave expression to modern anxiety three decades before most people even started feeling it. This is a novel which stands outside literary norms – a superb achievement of literary modernism. Be prepared for black humour as well as mind-bending contradictions and deeply etched literary expressionism. Read the stories and The Trial as a start and a minimum.
Franz Kafka The Trial Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka The Trial Buy the book at Amazon US

Franz Kafka – web links

Kafka Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Franz Kafka video Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Franz Kafka web links Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

Franz Kafka web links The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Franz Kafka Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Kafka photos Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Red button Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

Red button The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Red button Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

© Roy Johnson 2012

More on Franz Kafka
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The Man who Loved his Kind

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

The Man who Loved his Kind is one of a number of short stories by Virginia Woolf set at a party in the Westminster home of Richard and Clarissa Dalloway, the hosts of the central social event in her novel Mrs Dalloway (1925). The story was first published in A Haunted House (1944) and then later reprinted with the collection of stories and sketches Mrs Dalloway’s Party published by the Hogarth Press in London in 1973.

The Man who Loved his Kind

Queen Anne’s Gate – Westminster

The Man who Loved his Kind – critical commentary

This is one of a number of stories featuring social embarrassment, abject failures in communication, and crass egotism, bad faith, and self-absorption at the Dalloways’ party. Other stories in this category include The Introduction, Happiness, and The New Dress.

Prickett Ellis turns his own social unease and ill feelings to others into a cascade of bad faith and he descends into a vortex of maudlin self-regard.

Richard Dalloway, as a more urbane and sophisticated person that his old school friend, tries to oil the social wheels by introducing him to Miss O’Keefe. But unfortunately she is as rampantly insensitive and self-obsessed as Prickett Ellis himself – so it is no surprise that Dalloway’s encouraging gesture comes to nought.

In fact the story was originally entitled Lovers of their Kind, the plural form emphasising the symmetry of social failure on both Prickett Ellis’s and Miss O’Keefe’s part.

The Man who Loved his Kind – story synopsis

Prickett Ellis, a middle-aged solicitor, is invited to a party by his old school friend Richard Dalloway. He doesn’t really like parties, and has to borrow a dress suit to attend. He knows nobody at the party and feels a hostile resentment towards the other guests. He comforts himself with the memory that earlier in the day two of his clients have presented him with a clock. He compliments himself on being a plain, hardworking man of the people; he feels that he cannot afford luxuries; and he despises the people in the room who are able to do so. He feels choked by a sense of his own ‘goodness’ because he is not able to make other people aware of it.

The host Richard Dalloway then introduces him to Miss O’Keefe, who is rather haughty and full of her own sense of unspecific anger against the world. Ellis tells her why he disapproves of such events, and he wants to tell her about the clock, but she prevents this by attempting to engage him in cultural conversation. When this exchange fails miserably, she appeals to his appreciating the sense of beauty in the summer evening. He rejects the very idea of beauty, and instead tells her his story of the clock. She is shocked by his self-centredness. When he self-righteously claims that he loves ‘his own kind’, she claims the same thing. This contretemps makes both of them feel worse than ever – so they leave the party.

Study resources

The Man who Loved his Kind The Complete Shorter Fiction – Vintage Classics – Amazon UK

The Man who Loved his Kind The Complete Shorter Fiction – Vintage Classics – Amazon US

The Man who Loved his Kind The Complete Shorter Fiction – Harcourt edition – Amazon UK

The Man who Loved his Kind The Complete Shorter Fiction – Harcourt edition – Amazon US

The Man who Loved his Kind Monday or Tuesday and Other Stories – Gutenberg.org

The Man who Loved his Kind Kew Gardens and Other Stories – Hogarth reprint – Amazon UK

The Man who Loved his Kind Kew Gardens and Other Stories – Hogarth reprint – Amazon US

The Man who Loved his Kind The Mark on the Wall – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon UK

The Man who Loved his Kind The Mark on the Wall – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon US

The Man who Loved his Kind The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle edition

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

Red button Virginia Woolf – Authors in Context – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

The Man who Loved his Kind

The Man who Loved his Kind – characters
Richard Dalloway Clarissa Dalloway’s husband, an MP
Prickett Ellis a middle-aged bachelor and solicitor
Miss O’Keefe a spinster
Further reading

Red button Quentin Bell. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Red button Hermione Lee. Virginia Woolf. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Red button Nicholas Marsh. Virginia Woolf, the Novels. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Red button John Mepham, Virginia Woolf. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Red button Natalya Reinhold, ed. Woolf Across Cultures. New York: Pace University Press, 2004.

Red button Michael Rosenthal, Virginia Woolf: A Critical Study. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Red button Susan Sellers, The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Red button Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader. New York: Harvest Books, 2002.

Red button Alex Zwerdling, Virginia Woolf and the Real World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Other works by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf To the LighthouseTo the Lighthouse (1927) is the second of the twin jewels in the crown of her late experimental phase. It is concerned with the passage of time, the nature of human consciousness, and the process of artistic creativity. Woolf substitutes symbolism and poetic prose for any notion of plot, and the novel is composed as a tryptich of three almost static scenes – during the second of which the principal character Mrs Ramsay dies – literally within a parenthesis. The writing is lyrical and philosophical at the same time. Many critics see this as her greatest achievement, and Woolf herself realised that with this book she was taking the novel form into hitherto unknown territory.
Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse Buy the book at Amazon US

Vita Sackville-West - portraitOrlando (1928) is one of her lesser-known novels, although it’s critical reputation has risen in recent years. It’s a delightful fantasy which features a character who changes sex part-way through the book – and lives from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Using this device (which turns out to be strangely credible) Woolf explores issues of gender and identity as her hero-heroine moves through a variety of lives and personal adventures. Orlando starts out as an emissary to the Court of St James, lives through friendships with Swift and Alexander Pope, and ends up motoring through the west end of London on a shopping expedition in the 1920s. The character is loosely based on Vita Sackville-West, who at one time was Woolf’s lover. The novel itself was described by Nigel Nicolson (Sackville-West’s son) as ‘the longest and most charming love-letter in literature’.
Virginia Woolf - Orlando Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf - Orlando Buy the book at Amazon US

Virginia Woolf: BiographyVirginia Woolf is a readable and well illustrated biography by John Lehmann, who at one point worked as her assistant and business partner at the Hogarth Press. It is described by the blurb as ‘A critical biography of Virginia Woolf containing illustrations that are a record of the Bloomsbury Group and the literary and artistic world that surrounded a writer who is immensely popular today’. This is an attractive and very accessible introduction to the subject which has been very popular with readers ever since it was first published..
Virginia Woolf - A Biography Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf - A Biography Buy the book at Amazon US

Virginia Woolf – web links

Virginia Woolf at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major works, book reviews, studies of the short stories, bibliographies, web links, study resources.

Blogging Woolf
Book reviews, Bloomsbury related issues, links, study resources, news of conferences, exhibitions, and events, regularly updated.

Virginia Woolf at Wikipedia
Full biography, social background, interpretation of her work, fiction and non-fiction publications, photograph albumns, list of biographies, and external web links

Virginia Woolf at Gutenberg
Selected eTexts of her novels and stories in a variety of digital formats.

Woolf Online
An electronic edition and commentary on To the Lighthouse with notes on its composition, revisions, and printing – plus relevant extracts from the diaries, essays, and letters.

Hyper-Concordance to Virginia Woolf
Search texts of all the major novels and essays, word by word – locate quotations, references, and individual terms

Virginia Woolf web links Orlando – Sally Potter’s film archive
The text and film script, production notes, casting, locations, set designs, publicity photos, video clips, costume designs, and interviews.

Women’s History Walk in Bloomsbury
Tour of literary and political homes in Bloomsbury – including Gordon Square, Gower Street, Bedford Square, Tavistock Square, plus links to women’s history web sites.

Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Bulletins of events, annual lectures, society publications, and extensive links to Woolf and Bloomsbury related web sites

BBC Audio Essay – A Eulogy to Words
Charming sound recording of radio talk given by Virginia Woolf in 1937 – a podcast accompanied by a slideshow of photographs.

A Family Photograph Albumn
Leslie Stephen compiled a photograph album and wrote an epistolary memoir, known as the “Mausoleum Book,” to mourn the death of his wife, Julia, in 1895 – an archive at Smith College – Massachusetts

Virginia Woolf first editions
Hogarth Press book jacket covers of the first editions of Woolf’s novels, essays, and stories – largely designed by her sister, Vanessa Bell.

Virginia Woolf – on video
Biographical studies and documentary videos with comments on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group and the social background of their times.

Virginia Woolf Miscellany
An archive of academic journal essays 2003—2014, featuring news items, book reviews, and full length studies.

© Roy Johnson 2014

More on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf – short stories
Virginia Woolf – greatest works
Virginia Woolf – criticism
Virginia Woolf – life and works

The Mark on the Wall

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

The Mark on the Wall appeared in July 1917 as part of the very first publication of the Hogarth Press. It was printed in Two Stories, accompanied by the story Three Jews written by Leonard Woolf. The hand-produced ‘volume’ (of only thirty-four pages) was illustrated with woodcuts by Dora Carrington.

The Mark on the Wall

Virginia Woolf

The Mark on the Wall – critical commentary

Biography

In many of the experimental and quasi-philosophic narratives of her early modernist phase, Woolf uses an un-named and disembodied first person narrator as a vehicle to spin out the text. It is perfectly natural to think of this narrator as being Woolf herself. After all, she embeds the materials of her own life into her prose – the London scenes, the house in Sussex, her smoking cigarettes, reading and writing – and she includes many of the themes she would go on to develop in her later work.

In The Mark on the Wall she raises the issues of male authority and the construction of social hierarchies she ridicules in her discussion of Whitaker’s Table of Precedence. Both of these she developed in the years that followed until they reached their devastating climax in her fully developed attack on patriarchy in Three Guineas.

She also raises the issue of how novelists give an account of ‘reality’ in literary fiction – something that will be a preoccupation for the next twenty years of her life as a writer

Even Homer nods

Sometimes even the most celebrated and talented writers make mistakes – and Virginia Woolf is no exception. In a well-known passage from this story she evokes the uncertainty and precariousness of life.

Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour — landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one’s hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office!

This term shoot of course should be chute, though it is understandable why mention of ‘Tube’ and ‘Shot’, plus images of propulsion should put the term ‘shoot’ into her mind. It’s strange however that nobody in the hundred years (almost) since the story first appeared has though to correct the slip.

The Mark on the Wall – study resources

The Mark on the Wall The Complete Shorter Fiction – Vintage Classics – Amazon UK

The Mark on the Wall The Complete Shorter Fiction – Vintage Classics – Amazon US

The Mark on the Wall The Complete Shorter Fiction – Harcourt edition – Amazon UK

The Mark on the Wall The Complete Shorter Fiction – Harcourt edition – Amazon US

The Mark on the Wall Monday or Tuesday and Other Stories – Gutenberg.org

The Mark on the Wall Kew Gardens and Other Stories – Hogarth reprint – Amazon UK

The Mark on the Wall Kew Gardens and Other Stories – Hogarth reprint – Amazon US

The Mark on the Wall The Mark on the Wall – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon UK

The Mark on the Wall The Mark on the Wall – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon US

The Mark on the Wall The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle edition

Blogging Woolf The Mark on the Wall – an alternative reading

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

Red button Virginia Woolf – Authors in Context – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

The Mark on the Wall

The Mark on the Wall – story synopsis

An un-named first person narrator, observing a mark on the wall of a sitting room, uses the image as the starting point for a series of reflections, imaginary pictures, and observations about the nature of reality and what can and cannot be known. Topics include the previous occupants of the house, and the range of objects which are lost during the course of everyday life

The narrative then becomes self-referential and reflects upon the very activity of following trains of thought. It passes on to includes how the Self is made up of the reflections of other people, and how future novelists might take this into account in their depictions of reality.

This leads to a critique of generalisations and certainties about the existing order of things, and how the act of challenging them can produce a state of ‘illegitimate freedom’.

The mark is compared to a burial tumulous on the Sussex Downs, which leads on to a character sketch of an amateur archeologist and remnants of history in a local museum. And yet none of these objects guarrantee any sense of ‘knowledge’, and even the very notion of knowledge itself is questioned.

Whitaker’s Table of Precedence is used as a symbol of what society thinks of as fixed certainties, and encouragement to action is seen as a way of avoiding painful or disturbing thoughts.

The concrete objects of the external world offer a sense of what is real, and the example of a wooden chest of drawers is traced back to its origin as a tree, which goes on living in the objects that can be made from it.

The subjects over which these thoughts have ranged are then recalled, and the reverie is interrupted by the arrival of a second figure, who reveals that the mark on the wall is in fact a snail.

The Mark on the Wall – first appearance

 

Two Stories

Cover design by Leonard and Virginia Woolf

Further reading

Red button Quentin Bell. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Red button Hermione Lee. Virginia Woolf. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Red button Nicholas Marsh. Virginia Woolf, the Novels. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Red button John Mepham, Virginia Woolf. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Red button Natalya Reinhold, ed. Woolf Across Cultures. New York: Pace University Press, 2004.

Red button Michael Rosenthal, Virginia Woolf: A Critical Study. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Red button Susan Sellers, The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Red button Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader. New York: Harvest Books, 2002.

Red button Alex Zwerdling, Virginia Woolf and the Real World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Other works by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf Jacob's RoomJacob’s Room (1922) was Woolf’s first and most dramatic break with traditional narrative fiction. It was also the first of her novels she published herself, as co-founder of the Hogarth Press. This gave her for the first time the freedom to write exactly as she wished. The story is a thinly disguised portrait of her brother Thoby – as he is perceived by others, and in his dealings with two young women. The novel does not have a conventional plot, and the point of view shifts constantly and without any signals or transitions from one character to another. Woolf was creating a form of story telling in which several things are discussed at the same time, creating an impression of simultaneity, and a flow of continuity in life which was one of her most important contributions to literary modernism.
Virginia Woolf - Jacob's Room Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf - Jacob's Room Buy the book at Amazon US

Kew GardensKew Gardens is a collection of experimental short stories in which Woolf tested out ideas and techniques which she then later incorporated into her novels. After Chekhov, they represent the most important development in the modern short story as a literary form. Incident and narrative are replaced by evocations of mood, poetic imagery, philosophic reflection, and subtleties of composition and structure. The shortest piece, ‘Monday or Tuesday’, is a one-page wonder of compression. This collection is a cornerstone of literary modernism. No other writer – with the possible exception of Nadine Gordimer, has taken the short story as a literary genre as far as this.
Virginia Woolf - Kew Gardens Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf - Kew Gardens Buy the book at Amazon US

Virginia Woolf: BiographyVirginia Woolf is a readable and well illustrated biography by John Lehmann, who at one point worked as her assistant and business partner at the Hogarth Press. It is described by the blurb as ‘A critical biography of Virginia Woolf containing illustrations that are a record of the Bloomsbury Group and the literary and artistic world that surrounded a writer who is immensely popular today’. This is an attractive and very accessible introduction to the subject which has been very popular with readers ever since it was first published..
Virginia Woolf - A Biography Buy the book at Amazon UK
Virginia Woolf - A Biography Buy the book at Amazon US

Virginia Woolf – web links

Red button Virginia Woolf at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major works, book reviews, studies of the short stories, bibliographies, web links, study resources.

Virginia Woolf web links Blogging Woolf
Book reviews, Bloomsbury related issues, links, study resources, news of conferences, exhibitions, and events, regularly updated.

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf at Wikipedia
Full biography, social background, interpretation of her work, fiction and non-fiction publications, photograph albumns, list of biographies, and external web links

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf at Gutenberg
Selected eTexts of her novels and stories in a variety of digital formats.

Virginia Woolf web links Woolf Online
An electronic edition and commentary on To the Lighthouse with notes on its composition, revisions, and printing – plus relevant extracts from the diaries, essays, and letters.

Virginia Woolf web links Hyper-Concordance to Virginia Woolf
Search texts of all the major novels and essays, word by word – locate quotations, references, and individual terms

Virginia Woolf web links Orlando – Sally Potter’s film archive
The text and film script, production notes, casting, locations, set designs, publicity photos, video clips, costume designs, and interviews.

Virginia Woolf web links Women’s History Walk in Bloomsbury
Tour of literary and political homes in Bloomsbury – including Gordon Square, Gower Street, Bedford Square, Tavistock Square, plus links to women’s history web sites.

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Bulletins of events, annual lectures, society publications, and extensive links to Woolf and Bloomsbury related web sites

Virginia Woolf web links BBC Audio Essay – A Eulogy to Words
Charming sound recording of radio talk given by Virginia Woolf in 1937 – a podcast accompanied by a slideshow of photographs.

Virginia Woolf web links A Family Photograph Albumn
Leslie Stephen compiled a photograph album and wrote an epistolary memoir, known as the “Mausoleum Book,” to mourn the death of his wife, Julia, in 1895 – an archive at Smith College – Massachusetts

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf first editions
Hogarth Press book jacket covers of the first editions of Woolf’s novels, essays, and stories – largely designed by her sister, Vanessa Bell.

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf – on video
Biographical studies and documentary videos with comments on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group and the social background of their times.

Virginia Woolf web links Virginia Woolf Miscellany
An archive of academic journal essays 2003—2014, featuring news items, book reviews, and full length studies.

© Roy Johnson 2013

More on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf – short stories
Virginia Woolf – greatest works
Virginia Woolf – criticism
Virginia Woolf – life and works

The Marriages

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tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Marriages was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in August 1891. It was collected in Volume 8 of The Complete Tales of Henry James (Rupert Hart-Davis) 1963.

The Marriages

The Marriages – critical commentary

The main theme

The story is fuelled by Adela’s jealousy and her Elektra-like ambition to drive away erotic competition for her father. She is motivated by naked animosity towards Mrs Churchley from the very beginning of the story.

This presents readers with a problem, because almost all the information we have concerning Mrs Churchley is mediated via Adela, whose point of view controls the narrative.

She was as undomestic as a shop-front and as out of tune as a parrot. She would make them live in the streets, or bring the streets into their lives—it was the same thing. She had evidently never read a book, and she used intonations that Adela had never heard, as if she had been an Australian or an American.

This view of Mrs Churchley merely reflects Adela’s feelings about her prospective step-mother. It is not an objective portrait. Indeed, no objective portrait is presented.

Colonel Chant loses a chance of re-marriage through his daughter’s duplicity; Godfrey gains a wife he doesn’t really need; the wife loses her husband when she is bought off by Colonel Chart. It’s a story in which almost nobody gets what they wish for.

The Marriages – study resources

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

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

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

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

The Marriages The Complete Tales (Vol 8) – Paperback edition – Amazon UK

The Marriages Selected Tales – Penguin Classics edition – Amazon UK

The Marriages The Marriages – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Red button Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Marriages

The Marriages – plot summary

Part I. Adela Chart has recently lost her mother, to whom she was and remains devoted. She now feels jealously annoyed at her father’s attentions to Mrs Churchley, a rich but flamboyant woman. Adela tries to enlist the support of her brother Godfrey to disapprove of their father’s liaison, but Godfrey is preoccupied with exam preparations and does not share her anxieties.

Part II. A marriage date is set. Adela visits Mrs Churchley, following which the wedding is postponed. Colonel Chart sends his daughters to the family house in the country. Godfrey passes his exams, but before leaving for a posting in Madrid he visits Adela and demands to know what she has said to Mrs Churchley.

Part III. Adela reveals that she invented a story that her father mistreated their mother whilst she was alive. Godfrey is outraged and accuses Adela of spoiling his chances, causing Adela to fear that he has some guilty secret to hide.

Part IV. A tarty young woman arrives who reveals that she is married to Godfrey. Arrangements are made by Colonel Chart to pay off the woman with £600 per year so as not to spoil Godfrey’s chances in the diplomatic corps. Adela eventually goes to see Mrs Churchley to confess her lie. But Mrs Churchley makes it clear that she never believed her in the first place, and called off the marriage because she didn’t want her as a daughter-in-law.

Principal characters
Adela Chart a young woman whose mother has recently died
Colonel Chart her father, a widower
Godfrey Chart her younger brother who is cramming for civil service exams
Leonard Chart another brother, who is in the army in India
Beatrice and Muriel her younger sisters
Miss Flynn their governess
Mrs Churchley a wealthy and larger-than-life woman
Seymour Street the Chant family home in London
Overland the Chant family home in the country

Henry James's study

Henry James’s study

Further reading

Biographical

Red button Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Red button Leon Edel, Henry James: A Life, HarperCollins, 1985.

Red button Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, Adamant Media Corporation, 2001.

Red button F.O. Matthieson (ed), The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Critical commentary

Red button Ian F.A. Bell, Henry James and the Past, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.

Red button Millicent Bell, Meaning in Henry James, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993.

Red button Kirstin Boudreau, Henry James’s Narrative Technique, Macmillan, 2010.

Red button Daniel Mark Fogel, A Companion to Henry James Studies, Greenwood Press, 1993.

Red button Jonathan Freedman, The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Red button Barbara Hardy, Henry James: The Later Writing (Writers & Their Work), Northcote House Publishers, 1996.

Red button Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A study of the short fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Red button John Pearson (ed), The Prefaces of Henry James, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

Red button Ruth Yeazell (ed), Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Longmans, 1994.

Other works by Henry James

Henry James Daisy MillerDaisy Miller (1879) is a key story from James’s early phase in which a spirited young American woman travels to Europe with her wealthy but commonplace mother. Daisy’s innocence and her audacity challenge social conventions, and she seems to be compromising her reputation by her independent behaviour. But when she later dies in Rome the reader is invited to see the outcome as a powerful sense of a great lost potential. This novella is a great study in understatement and symbolic power.
Daisy Miller Buy the book from Amazon UK
Daisy Miller Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James The Aspern PapersThe 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.
Henry James The Aspern Papers Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Aspern Papers Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe 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.
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James – web links

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

Henry James 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.

Henry James 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.

Red button 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry James web links 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.

© Roy Johnson 2012

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

The Mausoleum Book

by

the intellectual life and two marriages of Leslie Stephen

Leslie Stephen has every right to be considered the ‘father’ of the Bloomsbury Group. His two sons Thoby and Adrian attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge.where their father had been a tutor and fellow. The sons invited their talented friends home to meet Stephen’s equally gifted daughters Vanessa and Virginia; and Sir Leslie helped to introduce the twentieth century and the first shoots of its modernism by publishing writers such as Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad. The intellectual and social connections that underlay the Bloomsbury Group actually went back into the middle of the nineteenth century.

Leslie Stephen - portrait

Sir Leslie Stephen (1832—1904)

The Mausoleum Book is a very personal account of Stephen’s two marriages was written in 1895 following the death of Stephen’s second wife Julia, and it was intended to be an entirely private document, addressed as a record to the family. Indeed it remained unseen outside this circle until its first publication in 1977. His children were slightly embarrassed by the tone of the memoir, which in his introduction Alan Bell calls one of ‘unrestrained lamentation’. But it has to be said that Leslie Stephen was doing something fairly unusual for the period – facing up to bereavement and the facts of death without the consolation of any religious belief. He had rejected what he called the ‘Noah’s ark myth’ and the trappings of religious ideology once and for all whilst at Cambridge – an act of intellectual honesty which led him to resign from his position of tutor at Trinity.

Having announced to his children at the outset of the memoir that it was to be about their mother, he launches immediately into an account of his own life – Cambridge, loss of religious belief, early days as a journalist, friendships with Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Carlyle, and George Eliot. His family was also friendly with William Makepeace Thackeray, through whom he met their daughter Harriet Marion (‘Minny’) who was to become his first wife.

But no sooner is Minny introduced than he immediately goes on to reflect on her sister Anny, who was a. popular novelist at the time. He describes her intellectual superiority, and her temperamental shortcomings. At this point the shadow of hereditary insanity in the Thackeray family is raised, and Stephen’s wife Minny dies very suddenly. His account then prepares the ground for his second marriage to the beautiful Julia Princep Jackson.

He backtracks very gallantly to give a history of her first marriage to Herbert Duckworth, painfully scanning their love letters and admitting she had been very happy in her choice of husband. Alas, this happiness was to last only three years, for Duckworth died very suddenly in 1870.

The shock and sadness of this sudden bereavement turned her into ‘a kind of sister of mercy’. She became engrossed in nursing skills which were reflected in her publication Notes from a Sickroom (1883) which forms an interesting bookend to her daughter Virginia Woolf’s later On Being Ill (1926).

Following their double loss, Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth became neighbours in Hyde Park Gate. They were close friends, united in widowhood, and had five children between them – one of whom (Laura, from his marriage to Minny) eventually became permanently incarcerated in a mental institution for the rest of her life.

They had domestic situations and social connections in common; they were old friends; and they lived in the same road – yet when he proposed marriage she turned him down, whilst protesting that she admired and even ‘loved’ him. They continued in this paradoxical impasse for a number of years until 1878 when she finally accepted his offer.

He claims that they were blissfully happy ever after – though his account should be taken along with the often more critical memoirs of his children (particularly Virginia’s) who all saw him as something of a domestic tyrant.

He paints a warm picture of summer holidays at Talland House in St Ives, Cornwall which will be familiar to those who have read To the Lighthouse – though the setting of the novel is supposed to be the Hebrides, a part of the narrative which is wholly unconvincing.

The memoir becomes slightly bizarre when he includes character sketches of people known to Julia but who had died at the time of its composition. These include the grotesquely entertaining figure of Halford Vaughan, who took a lofty and disdainful attitude to his adoring wife and devoted a lifetime to the composition of a magnum opus of which he only ever completed the introductory chapter, which completely fails to identify even the subject under consideration.

From this point on, the narrative becomes truly maudlin. There is amazingly little mention of his ‘new’ children with Julia (Thoby, Vanessa, Virginia, and Adrian) but endless accounts of other people’s illnesses and deaths.

For a while he protests in what seems to be a self-effacing manner about his own lack of literary achievement – only to then reveal his wife’s refutation of this view, something that he offers as an example of her superior judgement. He also lists compliments he has received from distinguished figures on his literary powers — ‘one of the greatest philosophic writers’ — but mentions them as something to confirm the wisdom of Julia’s views. This is a fairly devious way of patting yourself on the back. And it gets worse:

I can not doubt, without impugning her [Julia’s] judgement, that there must be something loveable in me.

This may even be true – but it’s no wonder that his children found their father’s memoir something of an embarrassment. But this slim volume is a rich vein of information for devotees of Bloomsbury, and a valuable insight into aspects of sentimental life of the late nineteenth century.

The Mausoleum Book The Mausoleum Book – Amazon UK
The Mausoleum Book The Mausoleum Book – Amazon US

NB! – On Amazon this book is classed as a rare item, and is priced accordingly. But don’t be put off: I bought my copy for one penny.

© Roy Johnson 2016

Leslie Stephen, The Mausoleum Book, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp.118, ISBN: 0198120842

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Twentieth century literature

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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tutorial, characters, criticism, video, study resources

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is probably Hardy’s greatest work – a novel whose aspirations are matched by artistic shaping and control. It is the tragic history of Michael Henchard – a man who rises to civic prominence, but whose past comes back to haunt him. This is not surprising, because he sells his wife in the opening chapter. When she comes back unexpectedly, he is trapped between present and past.

Thomas Hardy

He is also locked into a psychological contest with an alter-ego figure with whom he battles both metaphorically and realistically. Henchard falls in the course of the novel from civic honour and commercial greatness into a tragic figure, a man defeated by his own strengths as much as his weaknesses. There are strong echoes of King Lear here, and some of the most powerfully dramatic and psychologically revealing scenes in all of Hardy’s work.

Hardy is one of the few writers (Lawrence was another) who made a significant contribution to English literature in the form of the novel, poetry, and the short story. His writing is full of delightful effects, beautiful images and striking language.

He creates unforgettable characters and orchestrates stories which pull at your heart strings. It has to be said that he also relies on coincidences and improbabilities of plot which (though common in the nineteenth century) some people see as weaknesses. However, his sense of drama, his powerful language, and his wonderful depiction of the English countryside make him an enduring favourite.

The Mayor of Casterbridge – plot summary

At a country fair near Casterbridge, a young hay-trusser named Michael Henchard gets drunk and quarrels with his wife, Susan. He then auctions off his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor, Mr. Newson, for five guineas. Remorseful at his stupidity and loss, he next day swears not to touch liquor again for as many years as he has lived so far (twenty-one). Nineteen years later, Henchard, now a successful grain merchant, has become Mayor of Casterbridge, known for his staunch sobriety. He is well respected for his financial acumen and his work ethic, but he is not well liked. Impulsive, selfish behaviour and a violent temper are still part of his character.

The Mayor of CasterbridgeThe people in Casterbridge believe he is a widower. He himself finds it convenient to believe Susan probably is dead. While travelling to the island of Jersey on business, he falls in love with a young woman named Lucette de Sueur. They have a sexual relationship, and Lucetta’s reputation is ruined by her association with Henchard.

When Henchard returns to Casterbridge he leaves Lucetta to face the social consequences of their fling. Yet just as Henchard is about to send for Lucetta, Susan unexpectedly appears in Casterbridge with her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, who is now fully grown. Susan and Elizabeth-Jane are both very poor. Newson appears to have been lost at sea.

Just as Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive, so does an amiable Scotsman, Donald Farfrae, who has experience as a grain and corn merchant, and is on the cutting edge of agricultural science. He befriends Henchard and helps him out of a bad financial situation by giving him some timely advice. Henchard persuades him to stay and offers him a job as his corn factor. He also makes Farfrae a close friend and confides in him about his past history and personal life.

Henchard is also reunited with Susan and the fully grown Elizabeth-Jane, setting them up in a nearby house. He pretends to court Susan, and marries her. Both Henchard and Susan keep their past history from their daughter. Henchard also keeps Lucetta a secret. He writes to her, informing her that their marriage is off. Lucetta is devastated and asks for the return of her letters. Henchard attempts to return them, but Lucetta misses the appointment.

The new state of affairs sets in motion a decline in Henchard’s fortunes. His relationship with Farfrae deteriorates gradually as Farfrae becomes more popular than Henchard. In addition to being more friendly and amiable, Farfrae is better informed, better educated, and everything Henchard himself wants to be. Henchard feels threatened by Farfrae, particularly when Elizabeth-Jane starts to fall in love with him.

The competition between Donald Farfrae and Henchard grows. Eventually they part company and Farfrae sets himself up as an independent hay and corn merchant. Henchard meanwhile makes increasingly aggressive, risky business decisions that put him in financial danger. The business rivalry leads to Henchard standing in the way of a marriage between Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane.

At this point Susan dies and Henchard learns he is not Elizabeth-Jane’s father: she is Newson’s daughter. Feeling ashamed and hard done by, Henchard conceals the secret from Elizabeth-Jane, but grows cold and cruel towards her.

In the meantime, Henchard’s former mistress, Lucetta, arrives from Jersey and purchases a house in Casterbridge. She has inherited money from a wealthy relative. Initially she wants to pick up her relationship with him where it left off. She takes Elizabeth-Jane into her household as a companion thinking it will give Henchard an excuse to come visit, but the plan backfires.

The details of how Henchard sold his first wife become public knowledge when a man who witnessed the sale makes the story public. Henchard does not deny the story, but when Lucetta hears a little bit more about what kind of man Henchard really is she no longer particularly likes what she sees.

Donald Farfrae, who visits Lucetta’s house to see Elizabeth-Jane, now becomes completely distracted by Lucetta, having no idea that Lucetta is the mysterious woman who was informally engaged to Henchard.

Henchard, although he was initially reluctant, now gradually realizes that he wants to marry Lucetta, particularly since he’s having financial trouble due to some speculations having gone bad.

He bullies Lucetta into agreeing to marry him – but by this point she is in love with Farfrae. The two run away one weekend and get married. Henchard’s credit collapses, he becomes bankrupt, and he sells all his personal possessions to pay creditors.

As Henchard’s fortunes decline, Farfrae’s rise. He buys Henchard’s old business and employs Henchard as a journeyman day-laborer. Farfrae is always trying to help the man who helped him get started, whom he still regards as a friend and a former mentor. He does not realize Henchard is his enemy even though the town council and Elizabeth-Jane both warn him.

Lucetta, feeling safe and comfortable in her marriage with Farfrae, keeps her former relationship with Henchard a secret. But this secret is revealed and the townspeople publicly shame Henchard and Lucetta. Lucetta, who by this point is pregnant, dies of an epileptic seizure.

Suddenly Newson, Elizabeth-Jane’s biological father, returns. Henchard is afraid of losing her companionship and tells Newson she is dead. Henchard is once again impoverished, and as soon as the twenty-first year of his oath is up, he starts drinking again. By the time Elizabeth-Jane, who months later is married to Donald Farfrae and reunited with Newson, goes looking for Henchard to forgive him, he has died and left a will requesting no funeral and that no man should remember him.

Study resources

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Everyman Library Classics – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Everyman Library Classics – Amazon US

The Mayor of Casterbridge – York Notes – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – 1978 BBC TV version on DVD – Amaz UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – 2003 BBC TV version on DVD – Amaz UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – CD-ROM and audio pack – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge – audioBook version at LibriVox

The Mayor of Casterbridge – eBook versions at Gutenberg

Thomas Hardy: A Biography – definitive study – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy – Amazon UK

Red button The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy – Amazon UK

Red button Authors in Context – Thomas Hardy – Amazon UK

Thomas Hardy’s Complete Fiction – Kindle eBook

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Hardy – Amazon UK

The Mayor of Casterbridge

Principal characters
Michael Henchard the Mayor of Casterbridge, a corn-dealer
Susan his wife, who he sells at auction
Elizabeth-Jane their daughter, who dies in infancy
Richard Newson a sailor who ‘buys’ Henchard’s wife
Elizabeth-Jane Susan’s second daughter, with Richard Newsom
Donald Farfrae a scientific corn merchant, who also becomes the Mayor of Casterbridge
Lucette Le Sueur French-speaking woman from Jersey
Film version

opening of 2003 BBC TV version

music by Adrian Johnston

Further reading

J.O. Bailey, The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary, Chapel Hill:N.C., 1970.

John Bayley, An Essay on Hardy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Penny Boumelha, Thomas Hardy and Women: Sexual Ideology and Narrative Form, Brighton: Harvester, 1982.

Kristin Brady, The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy, London: Macmillan, 1982.

L. St.J. Butler, Alternative Hardy, London: Macmillan, 1989.

Raymond Chapman, The Language of Thomas Hardy, London: Macmillan, 1990.

R.G.Cox, Thomas Hardy: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1970.

Ralph W.V. Elliot, Thomas Hardy’s English, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.

Simon Gattrel, Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

James Gibson (ed), The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, London, 1976.

I. Gregor, The Great Web: The Form of Hardy’s Major Fiction, London: Faber, 1974.

Florence Emily Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy, London: Macmillan, 1962. (This is more or less Hardy’ s autobiography, since he told his wife what to write.)

P. Ingham, Thomas Hardy: A Feminist Reading, Brighton: Harvester, 1989.

P.Ingham, The Language of Class and Gender: Transformation in the English Novel, London: Routledge, 1995,

D. Kramer, Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy, London: Macmillan, 1975.

J. Hillis Miller, Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist, London: Bodley Head, 1971.

Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. (This is the definitive biography.)

Michael Millgate and Richard L. Purdy (eds), The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978-

R. Morgan, Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy, London: Routledge, 1988.

Harold Orel (ed), Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings, London, 1967.

Norman Page, Thomas Hardy: The Novels, London: Macmillan, 2001.

F.B. Pinion, A Thomas Hardy Companion, London: Macmillan, 1968.

F.B. Pinion, A Thomas Hardy Dictionary, New York: New York University Press, 1989.

Richard L. Purdy, Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

Marlene Springer, Hardy’s Use of Allusion, London: Macmillan, 1983.

Rosemary Sumner, Thomas Hardy: Psychological Novelist, London: Macmillan, 1981.

Richard H. Taylor, The Neglected Hardy: Thomas Hardy’s Lesser Novels, London: Macmillan, 1982.

Richard H. Taylor, The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy, London, 1978.

Merryn Williams, A Preface to Hardy, London: Longman, 1976.

Manuscript of The Mayor of Casterbridge

Other works by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy Tess of the d'UrbervillesTess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) is probably the most popular of Hardy’s late, great novels. The sub-title is ‘A Pure Woman’, and it is a story which explores the tragic consequences of a young milkmaid who becomes the victim of the men she encounters. First she falls for the spiritual but flawed Angel Clare, and then the physical but limited Alec Durberville takes advantage of her. This novel has some of the most beautiful and the most harrowing depictions of rural working conditions which reveal Hardy as a passionate advocate for those who work the land. It also has a wonderfully symbolic climax at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. There is poetry in almost every page.
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Jude the ObscureJude the Obscure is Hardy’s last major statement before he gave up writing novels for good. Hero Jude is intellectually ambitious but held back by his work as stonemason and his dalliance with earthy Arabella. When he meets his spiritual soulmate Sue Brideshead, everything seems set fair for success – except that she is capricious and sexually repressed. Jude struggles to do the right thing – but the Fates are against him. The outcome is heart-rendingly bleak and tragic. This novel reveals the deep-seated social and sexual tensions in Hardy – himself a self-made man from a humble background.
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Wessex TalesWessex Tales Don’t miss the skills of Hardy as a writer of shorter fictions. None of his short stories are really short, but they are beautifully crafted. This is the first volume of his tales in which he was seeking to record the customs, superstitions, and beliefs of old Wessex before they were lost to living memory. Yet whilst dealing with traditional beliefs, they also explore very modern concerns of difficult and often thwarted human passions which he developed more extensively in his longer works.
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Hardy greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

Thomas Hardy – web links

Hardy at Mantex Thomas Hardy at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, book reviews. bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Thomas Hardy complete works The Thomas Hardy Collection
The complete novels, stories, and poetry – Kindle eBook single file download for £1.29 at Amazon.

Hardy eTexts Thomas Hardy at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of digital formats.

Hardy at Wikipedia Thomas Hardy at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, the novels and literary themes, poetry, religious beliefs and influence, biographies and criticism.

Thomas Hardy web links The Thomas Hardy Society
Dorset-based site featuring educational activities, a biennial conference, a journal (three times a year) with links to the texts of all the major works.

Thomas Hardy web links The Thomas Hardy Association
American-based site with photos and academic resources. Be prepared to search and drill down to reach the more useful materials.

Hardy at IMDB Thomas Hardy on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Thomas Hardy web links Thomas Hardy – online literary criticism
Small collection of academic papers and articles ‘favoring signed articles by recognized scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed sources’.

Red button Thomas Hardy’s Wessex
Evolution of Wessex, contemporary reviews, maps, bibliography, links to other web sites, and history.

© Roy Johnson 2010

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The Middle Years

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tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Middle Years (1893) first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine when Henry James was only a comparatively young man of fifty. Yet the story reveals a profound concern with artistic achievement as the summation of a life’s work.

The Middle Years

The Middle Years

Towards the end of his life Henry James began to write stories which explored issues of biography, critical reputation, and public manifestations of literary life. Like many other writers he kept a tight control over his own image in the public eye, and eventually burnt all his most private papers so that nothing untoward would slip through to damage his posthumous reputation.

In The Aspern Papers (1888) a biographer seeking access to the private correspondence of a great writer is thwarted by the author’s former lover; The Abasement of the Northmores (1900) deals with an situation in which a posthumous collection of letters ironically reveal a lack of substance in the life of a public figure; and The Figure in the Carpet (1896) presents a distinguished novelist sending literary critics on a wild goose chase by the claims he makes for the work he leaves behind.

The Middle Years – critical commentary

The meaning of the story

At face value the meaning of the story is simple enough. After a lifetime’s achievement a distinguished novelist realises that he has finally reached a level of artistic creation towards which he has always striven. He wishes that this were rather a starting point, from which he could develop the potential he feels in himself. But for that he would need what he calls ‘a second age, an extension’.

That is, he wishes to live longer in order to achieve more. And he does not wish his posthumous reputation to be based on what he regards as an ‘unfinished’ career. But he is in ill health, and despite the ministrations of two doctors, it is obvious that he is fading rapidly.

Fortunately, Doctor Hugh reassures him that he has achieved greatness, and he dies realising that life does not permit a ‘second age’. An artist’s achievement is the sum of his life’s work created during his one opportunity to live. He sums up the situation in a memorable expression:

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

There are some beautiful passages in the story where James evokes a touching sense of fading powers and the feeling of a life slipping away under the pressure of illness. Dencombe’s feelings are also subtly mingled with his creative perception of what is going on around him. He fictionalises the Countess and her retinue as they appear before him on the Bournemouth sea front:

Where moreover was the virtue of an approved novelist if one couldn’t establish a relation between such figures? the clever theory for instance that the young man was the son of the opulent matron and that the humble dependent, the daughter of a clergyman or an officer, nourished a secret passion for him.

His suppositions are mildly incorrect, but they show the creative force of his imagination still at work, even though life is slipping away from him.

Another reading

Knowing what James was to write in the later parts of his career, it is difficult to escape the sense that the story is a sort of homo-erotic wish-fulfilment. Dencombe is an older single man and a writer whose wife and child have died. Doctor Hugh is a younger, charming, and very attentive admirer. The first result of their meeting is that Dencombe faints and ‘lost his senses altogether’.

On recovering, the first thing he thinks of is ‘Doctor Hugh’s young face … bent over him in a comforting laugh’. Doctor Hugh flatters him during his subsequent ministrations, reassuring him that he is not old ‘physiologically’. He says this whilst knowing as a physician that Dencombe is dangerously ill.

They both share a distinctly negative attitude towards women. Dencombe has already seen the Countess in a satirical manner: ‘the exorbitant lady, watching the waves, offered a confused resemblance to a flying machine that had broken down’. And he sees Miss Vernham in an even more negative light: ‘some figure … in a play or novel, some sinister governess or tragic old maid. She seemed to scan him, to challenge him, to say out of general spite ‘What have you to do with us?”

He attributes to Miss Vernham the malign intention of helping Doctor Hugh to ingratiate himself with the Countess so that she can marry him after he inherits her money. But Doctor Hugh is even more forthright: he simply thinks Miss Vernham is ‘mad’.

Doctor Hugh then forfeits the chance of such fortunes by sacrificing himself for the sake of his feelings for Dencombe. He has an ‘infatuation’ for his work. ‘I gave her up for you. I had to choose’ he tells the writer.

At this declaration Dencombe once again falls into a faint, from which he revives to say ambiguously to the young doctor, who is kneeling at the bedside, with his head ‘very near’ to the pillow, ‘The thing is to have made someone care’. Doctor Hugh’s response of ‘You’re a great success’ is made ‘putting into his voice the ring of a marriage-bell’.

In biographical terms even Dencombe’s final realisation can be seen as a form of coded acceptance of unconsummated desire. James was attracted to men and was sceptical about women – despite having females as close friends. But the conflict between his desire and his moral scheme of things produced conflicts that could only be resolved by the passive acceptance that Dencombe’s death suggests.

It is interesting to note that The Middle Years was the title James gave to his autobiographical reminiscences which were published in 1917, the year after his death. He dictated the text during the autumn of 1914 without notes of any kind. But by that time he had come to realise the nature of his own sexuality, and had indeed begun to act upon it, making him, as Harold Nicolson observed, a ‘late-flowering bugger’.

The Middle Years – study resources

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

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

The Middle Years Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Middle Years Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon US

The Middle Years The Middle Years – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon UK

The Middle Years The Middle Years – Oxford World Classics edition – Amazon US

The Middle Years The Middle Years – Kindle eBook edition

The Middle Years The Middle Years – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Red button Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Middle Years

The Middle Years – plot summary

Dencombe, a middle-aged novelist is taking a rest cure in Bournemouth following a recent illness. He feels depressed by a sense of fading powers, but when looking over an early copy of his latest novel The Middle Years realises that it is a good piece of work. He wishes he could have a ‘second’ writing career to build on the achievement of his first.

He meets young Doctor Hugh, a great admirer of his works, who is travelling in medical attendance on a Countess and her paid companion Miss Vernham. When Dencombe has another attack of illness, Dr Hugh befriends him and comforts him, realising his true identity. He reassures the novelist that he will ‘live’.

As Dencombe is convalescing, he is visited by Miss Vernham, who asks him to curtail his close association with Doctor Hugh, because the Countess demands complete fidelity and attention. She reveals that the Countess is expected to leave her money to Doctor Hugh, and Dencombe speculates that Miss Vernham will therefore subsequently wish to marry him.

The Countess and Miss Vernham return to London, where the Countess suddenly dies. Doctor Hugh then visits Dencombe to reveal that he has not been left anything, but he is buoyed up by a positive review of the novel. As Dencombe slips towards death he realises that there is to be no ‘second chance’, but Doctor Hugh reassures him that the fruits of his ‘first (and only) chance’ will make his reputation live on.

Principal characters
Dencombe elderly widower and novelist
Dr Hugh young medical advisor to the Countess
The Countess a rich dowager
Miss Vernham paid companion to the Countess

Henry James's study

Henry James’s study

Further reading

Biographical

Red button Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Red button F.W. Dupee, Henry James: Autobiography, Princeton University Press, 1983.

Red button Leon Edel, Henry James: A Life, HarperCollins, 1985.

Red button Philip Horne (ed), Henry James: A Life in Letters, Viking/Allen Lane, 1999.

Red button Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, Adamant Media Corporation, 2001.

Red button Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999

Red button F.O. Matthieson (ed), The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Critical commentary

Red button Elizabeth Allen, A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James London: Macmillan Press, 1983.

Red button Ian F.A. Bell, Henry James and the Past, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.

Red button Millicent Bell, Meaning in Henry James, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993.

Red button Harold Bloom (ed), Modern Critical Views: Henry James, Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.

Red button Kirstin Boudreau, Henry James’s Narrative Technique, Macmillan, 2010.

Red button J. Donald Crowley and Richard A. Hocks (eds), The Wings of the Dove, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978.

Red button Victoria Coulson, Henry James, Women and Realism, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Red button Daniel Mark Fogel, A Companion to Henry James Studies, Greenwood Press, 1993.

Red button Virginia C. Fowler, Henry James’s American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas, Madison (Wis): University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.

Red button Jonathan Freedman, The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Red button Judith Fryer, The Faces of Eve: Women in the Nineteenth Century American Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976

Red button Roger Gard (ed), Henry James: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1968.

Red button Tessa Hadley, Henry James and the Imagination of Pleasure, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Red button Barbara Hardy, Henry James: The Later Writing (Writers & Their Work), Northcote House Publishers, 1996.

Red button Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A study of the short fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Red button Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James, University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Red button Colin Meissner, Henry James and the Language of Experience, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Red button John Pearson (ed), The Prefaces of Henry James, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

Red button Richard Poirer, The Comic Sense of Henry James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Red button Hugh Stevens, Henry James and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Red button Merle A. Williams, Henry James and the Philosophical Novel, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Red button Judith Woolf, Henry James: The Major Novels, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Red button Ruth Yeazell (ed), Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Longmans, 1994.

Other works by Henry James

Henry James The Aspern PapersThe 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.
Henry James The Aspern Papers Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Aspern Papers Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe 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.
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James Daisy MillerDaisy Miller (1879) is a key story from James’s early phase in which a spirited young American woman travels to Europe with her wealthy but commonplace mother. Daisy’s innocence and her audacity challenge social conventions, and she seems to be compromising her reputation by her independent behaviour. But when she later dies in Rome the reader is invited to see the outcome as a powerful sense of a great lost potential. This novella is a great study in understatement and symbolic power.

Daisy Miller Buy the book from Amazon UK
Daisy Miller Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James – web links

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

Henry James 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.

Henry James 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.

Red button 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry James web links 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.

&copy Roy Johnson 2012

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The Modern Movement

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themes and developments in English Literature 1910-1940

Although writers such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and E.M. Forster produced their work almost a hundred years ago, we still class their work as ‘modernism’. That’s because they made such a radical break with the preceding century, and the fact is that some of their experiments have not been surpassed in the literature produced since.

The Modern MovementChris Baldick’s comprehensive study sketches in the social, linguistic, and aesthetic background of the period, then groups his discussion of examples according to literary forms – short stories, drama, poetry, and the novel. He naturally highlights the major figures – Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Eliot – but his other concern is to show the traditional literary culture out of which the modernist experiment emerged at the beginning of the last century.

This involves consideration of writers such as Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham, and now almost-forgotten figures such as Dornford Yates, Aldous Huxley, and Elizabeth Bowen who were very successful in their own time.

The Modern Movement ranges broadly, covering psychological novels, war poems, detective stories, ‘light reading’, essays, biography, satire (Waugh, Huxley, Lewis, Isherwood) children’s books, and other literary forms evolving in response to the new anxieties and exhilarations of twentieth-century life. He also introduces chapters which focus on themes such as Childhood, the Great War, and Sexuality.

He’s particularly well informed on what’s often called ‘the writer and the marketplace’ – that is, the financial realities which lie beneath the occupation of authorship. He knows who earned most (Arnold Bennett) he reveals which writers were subsidised by rich patrons (Joyce of course, as well as others who were subsidised by wealthy spouses). I was amazed to learn that D.H. Lawrence not only made a lot of money out of the privately published Lady Chatterley’s Lover but that he went on to make even more by investing it in stocks and shares on Wall Street.

One small feature comes off nicely. Each chapter is preceded by a list of new words which came into currency at the time, and they always seem to emerge earlier than you would guess – blurb, umpteen, back-pack, and tear-jerker for instance.

He even includes an interesting presentation of theories of the novel – which involves consideration of first and third person narration. This ties in the connections between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and lays out the groundwork for the central chapters on Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, and Forster.

Baldick interprets all the major works of these writers – Howards End, Mrs Dalloway, Ulysses, Women in Love – in a way that makes you feel like immediately reading them again. But en route he takes time to look at the lesser-known works of the period, such as Love on the Dole, Elizabeth Bowen’s The Death of the Heart, Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage, and Aldous Huxley’s Chrome Yellow, and novels by Naomi Mitchison, Robert Graves, and Sylvia Townsend Warner.

I remember reading Walter Allen’s The English Novel and Tradition and Dream many years ago, and this is a similar experience. Authors, novels, books, and ideas jump off every page, and anybody with an appetite for literature will feel a terrific urge to follow up on the suggestions he holds out.

There’s a very good collection of further reading at the back of the book. These entries combine biographical notes on the author, together with available editions of their major works, plus secondary studies and criticism.

This is the fifth volume to be published in the Oxford English Literary History series. It can be read continuously as an in-depth study of the period, or used as a rich source of reference.

© Roy Johnson 2004

The Modern Movement   Buy the book at Amazon UK

The Modern Movement   Buy the book at Amazon US

Chris Baldick, The Modern Movement, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp.477, ISBN: 0198183100

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The Moment

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essays on literature, reading, and cultural history

The Moment (1947) is the second collection of essays and reviews by Virginia Woolf that were gathered and edited by her husband Leonard after her death in 1941. She herself had supervised the earlier collections The Common Reader first series (1925) and The Common Reader second series (1932) which were published during her lifetime

The Moment

The Moment and Other Essays includes writing on literary criticism, biographical sketches, political polemics, and book reviews. Some of the essays were being published for the first time; others had appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, the New Statesman and Nation, Time and Tide, the New York Saturday Review, and John Lehmann’s New Writing. The collection includes two essays with the same title, Royalty; the first was commissioned, but not published by Picture Post; the second was published in Time and Tide.

The Moment – critical commentary

There are some essays in this collection that have become quite well known in their own right. On Being Ill for instance takes as a starting point the subject of illness in literature, a topic which she spins out into an extraordinary display of reflections on subjects including solitude, the psychology of reading, and the nature of language.

‘The Art of Fiction’ is one novelist’s response to the theorising of another – her critique and appreciation of E.M. Forster’s now classic study of fiction, Aspects of the Novel (1927). She agrees with his analysis of plot and structure, but playfully rebukes him for not paying more attention to the very medium of literature, which is words.

She is a writer (and a reader) who is inclined to look at the most fundamental aspects of her subject – which is the production and consumption of literature. In ‘Re-Reading Novels’ for instance she tackles head-on the problem of reading long Victorian novels such as Vanity Fair (1847) and (Meredith’s) Harry Richmond (1870).

First, there is the boredom of it. The national habit of reading has been formed by the drama, and the drama has always recognised the fact that human beings cannot sit for more than five hours at a stretch in front of a stage. Read Harry Richmond for five hours at a stretch and we shall only have broken off a fragment. Days may pass before we can add to it; meanwhile the plan is lost; the book pours to waste; we blame ourselves; we abuse the author; nothing is more exasperating and dispiriting.

She argues with Percy Lubbock’s notion of the novel’s ‘form’ — in The Craft of Fiction(1921) — that it is not something analogous to visual ‘shape’ in painting, but an arrangement of feelings with which we are left after the first reading of a text, and which might be re-arranged on a second or subsequent reading.

It’s a popular myth about Woolf and her fellow Bloomsbury artists and writers that they were elitist and not interested in politics. An essay such as ‘The Leaning Tower’ shows how the exact opposite was true. She analyses the tradition of English literature from an ideological, almost Marxist point of view, showing how the education of its writers was based on class privilege. It is no accident that the majority came from families who had the wealth to afford a public school and university education. She ends her survey with a rallying cry for an end to class divisions altogether, and the hope that ordinary men and women will borrow more books from public libraries. But then this essay was delivered as a paper to an audience of the Brighton Workers’ Educational Association in 1940 – so maybe we should not be surprised at its radical message.

This is not to say that all the essays and sketches are deadly serious. The attitudes she struck were obviously determined by the publications for which she was writing. There are shorter and more lightweight pieces such as her satirical account of the life of Benjamin Haydon, monumental painter and diarist, her reflections on the relationship between painting and literature, and even some thoughts on the poetry of fishing.

But whether the essays are short and witty or long and serious, she always has something thought-provoking to say. For instance, on individual writers, she admits her reservations regarding D.H.Lawrence, but produces a deeply felt appreciation of Sons and Lovers. She recognises that people have stopped reading the novels of Walter Scott altogether – but still manages to find something admirable in his ambition. And although she believes that David Copperfield is part of the national consciousness, she confesses that considered as a human being she ‘would not cross the road to dine with … Dickens.’

© Roy Johnson 2016

The Moment – study resources

The Moment The Moment – Amazon UK
The Moment The Moment – Amazon US

The Moment Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle -Amazon UK

The Moment Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle – Amazon US

The Moment The Moment – free eBook format – Gutenberg

The Moment

The Moment – complete contents
  • The Moment: Summer’s Night
  • On Being Ill
  • The Faery Queen
  • Congreve’s Comedies
  • Sterne’s Ghost
  • Mrs. Thrale
  • Sir Walter Scott. Gas at Abbotsford
  • Sir Walter Scott. The Antiquary
  • Lockhart’s Criticism
  • David Copperfield
  • Lewis Carroll
  • Edmund Gosse
  • Notes on D. H. Lawrence
  • Roger Fry
  • The Art Of Fiction
  • American Fiction
  • The Leaning Tower
  • On Rereading Novels
  • Personalities
  • Pictures
  • Harriette Wilson
  • Genius: R. B. Haydon
  • The Enchanted Organ: Anne Thackeray
  • Two Women: Emily Davies and Lady Augusta Stanley
  • Ellen Terry
  • To Spain
  • Fishing
  • The Artist and Politics
  • Royalty
  • Royalty
Virginia Woolf – the complete Essays

The Moment 1925 — The Common Reader first series

The Moment 1932 — The Common Reader second series

The Moment 1942 — The Death of the Moth

The Moment 1947 — The Moment and Other Essays

The Moment 1950 — The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays

The Moment 1958 — Granite and Rainbow

More on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf – web links
Virginia Woolf – greatest works
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