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literary studies, cultural history, and study skill techniques

literary studies, cultural history, and study skill techniques

The Novella

September 20, 2009 by Roy Johnson

tutorial and guidances notes

What is a novella?

The novella is a prose fiction which is longer than a long story, but shorter than a short novel. If that seems baffling, you could think of something around 30—40,000 words in length. But in fact, it’s not word count which is the crucial factor. The essence of a novella is that it has a concentrated unity of purpose and design. That is, character, incident, theme, and language are all focussed on contributing to a single issue which will be of a serious nature and universal significance.

Many of the classic novellas are concerned with people learning important lessons or making significant journeys. They might even do both at the same time, as do Gustave von Eschenbach in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis – both of whom make journeys towards death.

Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1912) is a classic novella – half way between a long story and a short novel. It’s a wonderfully condensed tale of the relationship between art and life, love and death. Venice provides the background for the story of a famous German writer who departs from his usual routines, falls in love with a young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of indulgence. The novella is constructed on a framework of references to Greek mythology, and the unity of themes, form, and motifs are superbly realised – even though Mann wrote this when he was quite young. Later in life, Mann was to declare – ‘Nothing in Death in Venice was invented’. The story was turned into a superb film by Luchino Visconti and an opera by Benjamin Britten.
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What produces the unity?

The events of the novella normally turn around a single incident, problem, or issue. There will be a limited number of principal characters – and in fact the story will probably be centred on just one or two. There will be no sub-plots or parallel actions. And the events are likely to take place in one location.

A short story may deal with a trivial incident which illustrates a small aspect of human nature, or simply evokes a mood or a sense of place. A novella on the other hand deals with much ‘larger’ and more significant issues – such as the struggle between the forces of innocence and justice, which Herman Melville depicts in Billy Budd, or the morally educating experience of the young sea captain which Joseph Conrad depicts in The Secret Sharer.

Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1856) deals with a tragic incident at sea, and is based on a true occurence. It is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a searching portrait of three men caught in a deadly triangle. Billy is the handsome innocent, Claggart his cruel tormentor, and Captain Vere the man who must judge in the conflict between them. The narrative is variously interpreted in Biblical terms, or in terms of representations of male homosexual desire and the mechanisms of prohibition against this desire. His other great novellas Benito Cereno, The Encantadas and Bartelby the Scrivener (all in this collection) show Melville as a master of irony, point-of-view, and tone. These fables ripple out in nearly endless circles of meaning and ambiguities.
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Features of the novella

A novel can have plots and sub-plots, a teeming cast of characters, and take place in a number of locations. But a novella is more likely to be concentrated on one issue, with just one or two central characters, and located in one place.

Artistically, the novella is often unified by the use of powerful symbols which hold together the events of the story. The novella requires a very strong sense of form – that is, the shape and essence of what makes it distinct as a literary genre. It is difficult to think of a great novella which has not been written by a great novelist (though Kate Chopin’s The Awakening might be considered an exception). Another curious feature of the novella is that it is almost always very serious. It’s equally difficult to think of a great comic novella – though Saul Bellow’s excellent Seize the Day has some lighter moments.
The Awakening – tutorial
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Seize the Day (1956) focusses on one day in the life of one man, Tommy Wilhelm. A fading charmer who is now separated from his wife and his children, he has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of havoc. In the course of one climatic day, he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise. Some people might wish to argue that this is a short novel, but it is held together by the sort of concentrated sense of unity which is the hallmark of a novella. It is now generally regarded as the first of Bellow’s great works, even though he went on to write a number of successful and much longer novels – for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976.
Seize the Day – tutorial
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Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1897) is a classic novella, and a ghost story which defies easy interpretation. A governess in a remote country house is in charge of two children who appear to be haunted by former employees who are now supposed to be dead. But are they? The story is drenched in complexities – including the central issue of the reliability of the person who is telling the tale. This can be seen as a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the traditional haunted house theme in Victorian culture, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease. Or is it simply, “the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read”? This collection also includes James’s other ghost stories – Sir Edmund Orme, Owen Wingrave, and The Friends of the Friends.
The Turn of the Screw – tutorial
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The Aspern Papers (1888) also by Henry James, is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s private correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer seeks a husband for her plain niece, whereas the potential purchaser of the letters she possesses 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 wins out? Henry James keeps readers guessing until the very end. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in the outcome. This collection of stories also includes The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion which is another classic novella.
The Aspern Papers – tutorial
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Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of late nineteenth century imperialism and the colonial process. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement. It is certainly regarded as a classic of the novella form, and a high point of twentieth century literature – even though it was written at its beginning. This volume also contains the story An Outpost of Progress – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’. The differences between a story and a novella are readily apparent here if you read both texts and compare them.
Heart of Darkness – tutorial
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Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the account of a young salesman who wakes up to find he has been transformed into a giant insect. His family are bewildered, find it difficult to deal with him, and despite the good human intentions struggling underneath his insect carapace, they eventually let him die of neglect. He eventually expires with a rotting apple lodged in his side. This particular collection also includes Kafka’s other masterly transformations of the short story form – ‘The Great Wall of China’, ‘Investigations of a Dog’, ‘The Burrow’, and the story in which he predicted the horrors of the concentration camps – ‘In the Penal Colony’.
Metamorphosis – tutorial
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The novels of Edith Wharton

June 3, 2013 by Roy Johnson

Edith Wharton (1862—1937) was a prolific and very successful American novelist of the early twentieth century whose critical reputation faded somewhat under the impact of literary modernism which took hold in the 1920s. However, it has recovered since her work was ‘rediscovered’ by feminists in the 1960s and the years that followed.

She writes in an elegant and measured style, not unlike that of her close friend Henry James. Like him she also wrote lots of short stories, and she is particularly well regarded for her ghost stories. Her subjects are men and women trapped between the conventions of an old nineteenth century order trying to break through to various forms of self-discovery and personal freedom made possible in the twentieth.

Like her younger contemporary Vita Sackville-West she was also an authority on gardens and interior decor. She designed her own forty-two roomed house in Lennox, Masachusetts. All of her major works have been turned into films, and she is now fairly well established as a major figure in the American literary tradition.

Ethan Frome (1911) tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this novella’s powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most celebrated book. In its unyielding and shocking pessimism, its bleak demonstration of tragic waste, it is a masterpiece of psychological and emotional realism. Every detail of the story contributes to a shocking and powerful conclusion you will never forget. This book is now regarded as a classic of the novella genre.
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The Age of Innocence (1920) is Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War. It’s a brilliantly realized anatomy of New York society in the 1870s. Newland Archer is charming, tactful, and enlightened. He accepts society’s standards and abides by its rules, but he also recognizes its limitations. His engagement to the impeccable May Welland assures him of a safe and conventional future – until the arrival of May’s cousin Ellen Olenska puts all his plans in jeopardy. Independent, free-thinking, and scandalously separated from her husband, Ellen forces Archer to question the values and assumptions of his narrow world. As their love for each other grows, Archer has to decide where his ultimate loyalty lies.
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The Custom of the Country (1913) is Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. This is a study of modern ambition and materialism written a hundred years before its time.
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The House of Mirth (1905) is the story of Lily Bart, who is beautiful, poor, and still unmarried at twenty-nine. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her. The book is a disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton’s generation. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways that transform the traditional novel of manners into an arresting modern document of cultural anthropology.
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The Reef (1912) deals with three topics with which Edith Wharton herself was intimately acquainted at the period of its composition – unhappy marriage, divorce, and the discovery of sensual pleasures. The setting is a country chateau in France where diplomat George Darrow has arrived from America, hoping to marry the beautiful widow Anna Leith. But a young woman employed as governess to Anna’s daughter proves to be someone he met briefly in the past and has fallen in love with him. She also becomes engaged to Anna’s stepson. The result is a quadrangle of tensions and suspicions about who knows what about whom. And the outcome is not what you might imagine.
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Edith Wharton’s house – The Mount

Edith Wharton – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Obelisk – short stories

March 8, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tales from E.M.Forster’s reserve collection

The Obelisk is a collection of stories taken from The Life to Come (1972), works not published during Forster’s lifetime, which ended in 1970, not long after the famous trials of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Last Exit to Brooklyn. One reason is that they all deal quite explicitly with homo-erotic topics which would not have been tolerated in print before 1970. The other reason might be that they fall so far below the artistic standards of his other work.

Some are mild satires of middle-class snobbery and hypocrisy set in a slightly indeterminate era which might be Edwardian or Georgian at the beginning of the last century. Others are satires of Biblical and mythical subjects treated in a manner which is supposed to be amusing, but which conjure up an embarrassing attitude poised somewhere midway between lyricism and schoolboy smuttiness. If these stories belonged to Forster’s desk drawer, there might be some good arguments for having left them there.

In the title story a conventional married couple meet two slightly dubious sailors on a day out. The wife enjoys a snatched liaison with one of them, but then is shocked to discover that her husband might have done the same thing with the other.

A missionary converts a local chieftain by succumbing to his sexual advances, then feels guilty for doing so. The two men grow apart and marry, but when the chieftain is about to die there appears to be an emotional reconciliation. What actually happens is a tragedy of Imperialism.

In another story, an old country squire who is dying imagines that he is still desirable to a young man working on his estate as a hired labourer. The story is related in a lyrical, quasi-poetical manner, but it reads as a rather unconvincing piece of homo-erotic wishful thinking on the part of an older man.

Similarly, in the unfortunately titled ‘Arthur Snatchfold’ a sexual encounter between a young workman and a rich industrialist is the occasion for a critique of society’s punitive attitude to gay men, and another improbable piece of ill-sublimated wish-fulfilment about older men being sexually desirable to male youths.

Almost all these stories have in common sexual encounters between an older man from the upper echelons of society and a much younger man from the lower. It very difficult to escape the suspicion that Forster was writing these stories late in life as therapeutic exercises.

‘What does it matter?’ is a silly tale set in a Gilbert and Sullivan Ruritania-like country whose president is caught in flagrante with a handsome young guardsman. Some of the other pieces are not much more than extended jokes, using classical mythology and even religion as a vehicle for nudge-nudge remarks about fig leaved statues and well-endowed young boys.

The best story in the collection – ‘The Other Boat’ – is the only serious attempt to explore both the gay and the Imperial theme. A young British officer becomes entangled in a shipboard dalliance with his Anglo-Indian cabin mate. The forbidden passion ends in murder and suicide, but at least their relationship is explored in some depth

We know that Forster stopped writing fiction after A Passage to India because he could no longer believe in creating credible heterosexual relationships, and of course at the time it was not possible to publish fiction which was explicitly homosexual. But this leaves us with something of a conundrum, because the homosexual relationships Forster did manage to write about (even if he did not publish them) are far less credible than the heterosexual ones which were a product of his creative imagination.

So this collection The Obelisk acts as a salutary tale to those who believe that authors can only write well on subjects known from personal experience. And it also supplies evidence that even distinguished writers sometimes produce work which is well below their normal standards, even when writing on topics which are close to their hearts.

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E.M.Forster The Obelisk, London: Hesperus Press, 2009, pp.169, ISBN: 1843914360

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The Omega Workshops

September 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Bloomsbury graphic and interior design

The Omega Workshops was a short-lived but influential artists’ co-operative which formed as an offshoot of the Bloomsbury Group. It was the brainchild of Roger Fry who had the philanthropic notion of a self-help scheme for hard-up artists who would create goods of simple but Post-Impressionist modern design. It was partly a reaction against the drabness of mass-produced household goods, but it did not have any of the socialist ideology of William Morris’s earlier Arts and Crafts movement.

It opened in 1913 at the worst possible time in commercial terms, at 33 Fitzroy Square in the heart of Bloomsbury. Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry were named as directors, and the premises included both public showrooms as well as artists’ studios. Although the works were produced by people we now see as influential members of the modernist movement, individual productions were made anonymously, signed only with the letter Omega. Artists worked three and a half days a week, for which they were paid thirty shillings. The opening was regarded as nothing short of scandalous. This was a time when popular opinion, fanned by a largely reactionary press, was sceptical to the point of hostility on matters of modern art – especially when it was coupled to something as daring as interior design.

A number of famous names were associated with the workshop: at one time or another Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Paul Nash, David Bomberg, William Roberts, and Mark Gertler all had connections with the Omega.

At the launch of the project, artist and writer Wyndham Lewis was also a member; but he quickly split away from the group in a dispute over Omega’s contribution to the Ideal Homes Exhibition. Lewis circulated a letter to all shareholders, making accusations against the company and Roger Fry in particular, and pouring scorn on the products of Omega and its ideology. This subsequently led to his establishing the rival Vorticist movement and the publication in 1916 of its two-issue house magazine, BLAST.

In 1915 Omega started to introduce clothing into the repertoire, inspired by both the costumes of the Ballets Russes and Duncan Grant’s theatre designs. Avid supporters included the flamboyant dresser and socialite Ottoline Morrell as well as the famous bohemian artist (and alcoholic) Nina Hamnet who helped by modelling the clothes.

The war years were difficult for Omega, because many of the principal figures were out of London, working on various agricultural projects as conscientious objectors. Whilst Roger Fry continued to support Omega in London, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Charleston in Sussex, where they put their efforts into decorating the entire house in Omega style – an effort which is now maintained by the National Trust.

Bloomsbury prevailed on all its high society contacts to patronise the workshop, and some commissions for interior house designs were forthcoming from people such as Mary Hutchinson – who was Clive Bell’s mistress. But the reputation of the workshops was not helped by the fact that many of its products were poorly constructed. The biggest commercial success of the Omega was its final closing down sale in 1919, when everything went for half price.

It was a venture which was launched with disastrous timing and foundered on a combination of amateurism and poor management. Yet it established interior design as a legitimate artistic activity, and its influence continued from the 1920s onwards. As Virginia Nicholson in her study Among the Bohemians observes:

Many of the late twentieth-century and contemporary trends are in themselves tributes to the influence of the Charleston artists, to the Diaghilev ballet designers, to the aesthetes, to Omega, and to the members of the Arts and Crafts movement. The modern fashionable interior pays homage to a creative urge amongst a relatively small sub-section of society in the early decades of the twentieth century. So much of what those artists did has been assimilated and re-assimilated, that one should not be surprised that their tastes are yet again being re-cycled for the World of Interiors readership, even if their origins are not always acknowledged.

Omega cabinet – designed by Roger Fry

Omega and After is a beautifully illustrated account of the workshops and their aftermath. It focuses on the three principals – Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant, tracing their artistic production (and their tangled personal relationships) from 1913 to the interwar years. Even when the workshops closed, Grant and Bell continued their interior design work in their decorated house at Charleston. The Omega Workshops had a lasting influence on interior design in the post-war years. This is a rich collection of quite rare pictures, portraits and sketches.
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Twentieth century literature

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

April 24, 2018 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, plot summary, web links

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) is something of a curiosity in the work of Evelyn Waugh. It is usually classed as a novel, but has more of the characteristics of a novella. Quite clearly it is autobiographical in origin, and in essence it has only one character – Gilbert Pinfold himself. In this sense it can also be regarded as a psychiatric case study – except that the condition it dramatises was eventually diagnosed as a pharmacological, not a psychological problem. It continues Waugh’s fictional strategy of combining serious problems with dramatic irony and comic misunderstandings.

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – commentary

Story – novel – novella

The publication could easily be classed as a long story. It deals essentially with one person’s experiences. It starts with the onset of his problems in a domestic English setting. It follows his escapist travels and the intensification of his psychic dramas. Then the narrative returns to its starting point and the solution to his problems. Pinfold is cured, and he decides to write the book we have just been reading.

None of the secondary characters have any real substance, and some of them do not even exist. In this sense it is simply a yarn or a tale whose principal interest is the depiction of a mental disorder from the sufferer’s point of view – and the comic consequences to which this breakdown leads.

To regard it as a novel raises problems. As an account of Pinfold’s psychological difficulties it lacks substance, since the majority of the drama is composed of imaginary events. After a perfectly credible opening, the story drifts into a dreamlike state which lacks the concrete reality that is normally part of a realistic novel.

More importantly, there is no acceptable explanation given for the resolution of the psycho-somatic tensions Pinfold is suffering. His physical pains suddenly and inexplicably disappear half way through the story, and the hallucinations evaporate just as suddenly when he reaches home. No reason is given for their origins or dissolution.

This might be the result of using personal experience as the material of what purports to be fiction. The events of the story are very closely based on Evelyn Waugh’s own ‘mid life crisis’ during which he undertook a sea voyage in an attempt to cure writer’s block. He also suffered from a form of persecution mania and delusions.

The cause of these problems was eventually identified as poisoning brought on by his heavy use of drugs and alcohol. As soon as his medication was changed, the hallucinations disappeared completely. There is no comparable resolution provided within the text. The story simply ends with the sort of ‘It had all been a dream’ conclusion to a schoolchild’s creative writing exercise.

But a stronger case can be made for considering it as a novella. It has unity of theme, unity of tone, and unity of character. It also has a neat triangular structure. The story begins with the origins of the drama in an English country house. Its central section deals with the development of Pinfold’s ailments during a sea voyage. And the problems are resolved on finally returning home.

This is simply an alternative view of the same literary material. It suggests a formal coherence in the events of the story, but it doesn’t provide the logical inevitability normally expected from narratives in the form of a novella. This essential element of formal resolution, unfortunately, is missing.

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – study resources

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – Penguin – Amazon UK

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – Penguin – Amazon US

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited – Amazon UK

Four novels by Evelyn Waugh – Amazon UK

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – extensive Wikipedia entry

Evelyn Waugh – by Henry Lamb

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – plot summary

Gilbert Pinfold is a successful middle-aged author with conservative views and habits. He lives privately on an estate in what seems to be the West Country. He has problems sleeping, drinks heavily, and takes barbiturates. Following an unpleasant interview by the BBC, he finds his memory playing tricks.

He decides to go somewhere hot to finish his latest book. Despite being in ill health and unable to complete everyday tasks, he continues to drink heavily. On board ship he begins to lose track of time and starts having hallucinations. He loses social control at dinner, then overhears a riot on deck – which is severely quelled by the captain.

After lunch the next day he hears the trial and torture of a crew member coming from the captain’s cabin. The crewman dies. Following this, the pains in Pinfold’s legs suddenly disappear.

He hears a radio broadcast criticising his work as a novelist, then at the dinner table thinks to challenge the captain by raising the subject of murder. He stays awake to check that the captain does not dispose of the crewman’s body at night. Then he overhears two drunken youths who are threatening to beat him. The youths wake up other passengers, all of whom have criticisms of Pinfold.

Next morning Pinfold hears two girls planning to give him presents. The two loutish youths begin to taunt him again. They accuse him of being homosexual, a German (Peinfeld), a Jew, and a communist. Pinfold plans to bring them to trial in the ship’s lounge.

As the ship nears the Mediterranean, Pinfold learns that an international conflict has arisen over possession of Gibraltar. The captain reveals that the Spanish authorities want to capture a secret agent who is on board. He proposes giving them Pinfold as a substitute. When nothing happens Pinfold wonders if he is going mad, but decides it was all a hoax.

He becomes convinced that all the passengers on board are talking about him. A young girl called Margaret whom he has never met makes amorous overtures to him. Her parents intervene – but only to encourage her to visit Pinfold’s cabin at night. She is urged on by her father in military terms, but nothing happens.

When Pinfold overhears passengers laughing over telegrams he has sent he complains to Captain Steerforth and changes his cabin. He also thinks the practical jokes played on him have been orchestrated by Mr Angel, the man from the BBC who interviewed him.

He decides to thwart Angel’s plans by leaving the ship at Port Said and flying on to Colombo. He writes to his wife explaining the plot against him and signalling his intentions.

In Colombo he continues his conversations with Margaret. His wife sends a cable, urging him to come home. When he does return, the voices pursue him all the way back to London. He meets his wife and the voices stop. When they get home he decides to write The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold.

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The Original of Laura

January 8, 2010 by Roy Johnson

a novel in fragments

The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun) is a novel from beyond the grave by Vladimir Nabokov. Everyone has now woken up to the fact that Nabokov has been writing stories and novels about older men and younger women (and even younger girls) for quite some time. It’s no good taking his word for it (as he claims in his preface) that the original inspiration for Lolita came from a ‘painting’ by a chimpanzee in the Jardin des plantes. He had already written an entire novella (The Enchanter 1939) on exactly the same theme of what is now technically classed as paedophilia.

We now have his posthumous (and presumably last) work, which has been released even though he made an express wish that it should not be published if it were to be unfinished at the time of his death. And it certainly isn’t finished. Even to call it ‘a novel in fragments’ is stretching definitions somewhat. It consists of the drafts of three discernable and coherent chapters, plus lots of notes for other vaguely related materials which Nabokov was working on at the time of his death in 1977.

The novel-to-be seems to contain two main themes. The first is the sexual life of a flirty young girl called Flora (aged twelve in the semi-completed chapters) who is pursued lecherously by an ageing roué called (believe it or not) Hubert H. Hubert. She survives this and moves with her mother to an American college, where she studies French and Russian. Readers of Nabokov’s other novels will recognise elements from Laughter in the Dark, Lolita, and Pnin already.

Part way through, the index cards on which Nabokov famously composed his novels change from relating a story to notes and instructions to himself – ideas for the plot, memos to invent a plausible name for a pharmaceutical, and lists of unusual words he was obviously striving to coin.

The second theme, which gives the book its sub-title, concerns Dr Philip Wild, a teacher at the college, whom Flora eventually marries. He is overweight, has bad feet, and he embarks on a quest of what he calls ‘dying by auto-dissolution’. It seems quite clear that the connections between these two parts of the narrative had not been conceptualised by Nabokov – which provides an interesting glimpse into his methods as a writer.

There are also hints that his story is the original source material for another book called My Laura written by somebody else that went on to become a best-seller. Here we have further echoes of Lolita, and typical Nabokovian playfulness – but since this theme remains undeveloped it warrants little attention.

This brings us to the book as a physical object and a product of print production. It’s the nearest a reader could get to seeing the system of writing for which Nabokov was famous. The index cards on which he wrote are photographically reproduced at the top of each right-hand page, with the text of the card reproduced below, complete with mis-spellings, grammatical errors, and slips of the pen.

The cover of the book is a photo-print of a typical index card, and each of the 138 index cards also has perforated edges, so theoretically they can be removed from the book and arranged in a different order if required. I imagine this gimmick will be dropped when the book is published in paperback, but Nabokovians and bibliophiles will undoubtedly want to possess this novelty edition.

That’s the good part. The not-so-good news is that the book is set in a font (Filosofia, by Zuzana Licko) which is a version of Bodoni. The body text is quite elegant and readable, but some headlines are set in the font’s unicase version, which has capitals and lower case of the same height. I am quite confident that Nabokov would have detested such affectation, and the results on some pages look awful.

The book has been created by Chip Kidd, a respected graphic designer, but I’m afraid this does not add anything to the appeal of this particular book or to Nabokov’s oeuvre as a whole. The index cards come out of this well enough, but reading the text in black print on dark grey paper is no joke.

The story is presented in an interesting and very allusive manner. There are unexplained shifts in the temporal sequence of events and the narrative point of view. These suggest that Nabokov was still experimenting with narrative strategies right up to the end of his life. [I have examined this phenomenon in my study of his short stories.] However, it has to be said that in common with the prose style of his other late works, it is contaminated by lots of irritating quirks and tics, such as his weakness for alliteration – though it might be slightly unfair to judge him from what was obviously a work in progress.

‘foetally folded … narrow nates … He brought from the favourite florist of fashionable girls a banal bevy of bird of paradise flowers’

It has been claimed that Nabokov would envisage a novel complete in his mind before starting to write it. This was supposed to allow him to work on any section his wished, then place a card in the stack already written. The cards in this volume cast severe doubts on that claim. There is some sense of fluency in the semi-completed chapters, but it’s of a kind that characterises his less distinguished novels; and the remainder prove that he was thinking aloud and making it up as he went along.

The volume has a preface written by his son Dmitri which is a pompous and badly-written piece of self-indulgence that tells us very little about the manuscript and why it came to be published. What it does tell us is how not to behave as the offspring of a famous person.

So, it’s a production with a number of interesting features. It’s clearly a piece of gross commercial opportunism; it gives more ammunition to those who see Nabokov as a great writer with a dubious interest in under-age girls; it’s unlikely to enhance his reputation as a writer; but for me it’s a fascinating glimpse into the writer’s workshop – and further proof that we shouldn’t take what writers say about their own motivations and methods at face value.

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Vladimir Nabokov, The Original of Laura: (Dying is Fun) a novel in fragments, London: Penguin, 2009, pp. 278, ISBN 0141191155

More on Vladimir Nabokov
More on literary studies
Nabokov’s Complete Short Stories

The Other House

May 6, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Other House (1896) was first conceived as a stage play called The Promise. It was converted into a novel and first appeared in the London Illustrated News, then later as a single-volume novel published by Heinemann in 1896. Almost ten years later it was re-converted into a play. But neither the earlier nor the latest dramatised version ever reached the stage.

The decade of the 1890s was a period in which James suffered from the disappointment of his calamitous experiments with the theatre. But he was nothing if not an efficient housekeeper of the materials he had generated. Dramatic plots he had first created for the stage were turned into prose fiction – even though their origins show through in the volume of dialogue which dominates the text.

The Other House is also unusual in James’s oeuvre in that it is a murder mystery. Many of his other works flirt closely with illegal acts and certainly contain many forms of death – but this novel embeds beneath its welter of conversation the deliberate murder of a child. It’s also a murder which goes unpunished.

The Other House – critical commentary

Literary critics have passed generally unfavourable comment on The Other House on the grounds that the muder of a child is inconsistent with the rest of Henry James’s work, and that the psychological motivation of the characters is rather improbable.

This view has two weaknesses, the first of which is that the governess in The Turn of the Screw (written around the same time) frightens to death the child Miles because of her neurotic obssessions. The second is that the person guilty of the crime in The Other House, Rose Armiger, is quite obviously a ruthless and ‘bad heroine’. She comes from a lower class of society than the other characters (with an income of only £200 per annum) and must remove the one obstacle that stands in the way of her snaring Tony.

She and the ‘good heroine’ Jean Martle are not only in love with the same man but deeply antagonistic to each other. She has every reason for wishing to blame the murder onto her rival, and thus eliminate two impediments at the same time.

The only problem, given such a tightly choreographed series of events, is why she should announce her engagement to Dennis Vidal only a few moments before commiting the murder which she hopes will clear her way to securing Tony.

Presumably, one might argue, that rather like many other unscrupulous villains, she wishes to keep all her options open. One might also argue that in declaring her engagement (which she does before Dennis has actually proposed) she thereby deflects suspicion from herself. She would also certainly have had no compunction in ditching Dennis a second time if her plan had been successful.

Certainly the motivation and behaviour of the other characters is consistent and credible. Dennis is fatally ‘smitten’ with Rose. Jean is heroically devoted to Tony and his child. Paul is a naive young man casting around in an adult milieu, propelled by a controlling mother. Dr Ramage acts entirely unethically in covering up the crime, but he does so in order that the good name of an upper-class family (who are also his employers) should not be sullied.

James is no stranger to ambiguous conclusions in his work. Everyone in this story gets off scott free – except that it is assumed that Rose will have to live out her emigrant existance in China with a heavily burdened conscience.

It only remains to observe that given the circumstances obtaining at the conclusion, Jean is actually free to get her man after all.

Dramatic unity

In 1890 Henry James began his ill-fated attempt to succeed in the theatre. The story is now well known. He wrote several plays which successive producers turned down, and when finally his Guy Domeville was staged in 1895 it was greeted on its first night with a 15 minute curtain call of booing and jeering. James gave up the stage, put his dramatic ambitions behind him, and returned to the novel.

But what is not so well known (or observed) is that he retained the plots of these failures, and some of the novels he produced in the wake of this decision are heavily influenced by theatrical conventions and the mechanics of the theatre. The Awkward Age (1898) for instance is a story almost entirely composed of conversations between characters as they visit each others’ drawing rooms.

The Other House (1896) uses the same technique but focuses dramatic interest even more intensely into three ‘acts’ set in only two adjacent and very similar locations. The characters walk on and off ‘stage’ in carefully choreographed sequences, exchanging the information which constitutes the narrative.

Indeed the whole of the first part of the novel (one hundred pages) follows the Aristotelian ideal of unity of time, place, and action. It takes place in one short period of time in one location. It’s a story made for the theatre, and the strategies for getting the players on and off stage are as creakingly evident as the flapping scenery of a painted backdrop.

It is in fact a three act murder mystery, and was first conceived as the scenario for a stage play in 1883 called The Promise, but was turned down by theatrical producers. James certainly made the best of his opportunities for re-cycling the carefully planned dramatic material with which he filled his notebooks.

The Other House – study resources

The Other House – New York Review Books – Amazon UK

The Other House – New York Review Books – Amazon US

The Other House – Everyman Classics – Amazon UK

The Other House – Everyman Classics – Amazon US

The Other House – Kindle eBook edition

The Other House – (unabridged) audio download edition

The Other House – notes on the text

The Other House – eBook edition

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Other House – plot summary

Book First. A bank is controlled by two families, the Beevers and the Breams who live in two adjacent contry houses separated by a river with a connecting bridge. In Part I of the novel the characters assemble at Bounds, the Bream house. Tony Bream’s wife Julia is ill following the birth of their daughter Effie. She makes her husband promise that in the event of her death he will not re-marry whilst their daughter is still alive. At the same time, Rose Armiage, an impecunious friend of the Breams is due to marry Dennis Vidal, a clerk in the ‘Eastern office’ with prospects, but they quarrel over her attachment to the Breams and break off their engagement. Vidal goes back to China.

Book Second. Events take place four years later at Eastmead, the Beever house, following the death of Julia Bream. Effie’s birthday is being celebrated. Interest is focussed on Paul Beever, a young man who has inherited a half share in the bank and whose mother wishes to see him married – possibly to Jean Martle, Mrs Beever’s cousin. This match is encouraged by both Tony Bream and Rose Armiger in what they claim is Paul’s best interest.

But Jean refuses the offer, saying that she will never be marry anyone. Dennis Vidal on the same day has arrived back from China, much richer, to enquire after Rose, who announces publicly that she will now accept his offer of marriage. During the social flurry of these events the child Effie goes missing, and is discovered dead in the river by Dr Rammage. Her father Tony confesses that he has killed her.

Book Third. Events take place in the same location, immediately following this announcement. A series of characters interview each other, during the course of which it emerges (very obscurely) that Rose has killed the child and tried to put the blame onto Jean, her rival in love for Tony Bream (and as a way of circumventing the promise made to his former wife).

Dr Ramage arranges to cover up the crime, claiming there has been an accident. Dennis takes Rose away to return to China, and Tony is spared any of the scandal for which he was honourably trying to take the blame.

Principal characters

Mrs Adela Beever	the ‘queen mother’ of Eastmead
Paul Beever	her naive but honest son – inheritor of half the bank
Anthony (Tony) Bream	co-owner of the bank
Julia Bream	his wife who dies
Effie Bream	their child
Jean Martle	Mrs Beever’s cousin
Rose Armiger	school friend of Bream – ‘engaged’ to Dennis Vidal
Dennis Vidal	a ‘rising’ clerk in the Eastern service
Dr Ramage	the local physician
Mrs Grantham	Rose’s aunt, Julia’s stepmother
Gorham	Effie’s nurse
Manning	Mrs Beever’s tall parlourmaid
Wilverley	the local town
Eastmead	Mrs Beever’s house
Bounds	the Bream’s house
Plumbury	the local railway station

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
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Daisy 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.
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The Cambridge Companion to Henry James is intended to provide a critical introduction to James’ work. Throughout the major critical shifts of the past fifty years, and despite suspicions of the traditional high literary culture that was James’ milieu, as a writer he has retained a powerful hold on readers and critics alike. All essays are written at a level free from technical jargon, designed to promote accessibility to the study of James and his work.
Buy the book here

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other Two

February 16, 2014 by Roy Johnson

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

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

The Other Two – critical commentary

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

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

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

The Other Two – study resources

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

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

The Other Two – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Other Two – paperback edition – Amazon UK

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Other Two – plot synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

Principal characters

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

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Outcry

May 10, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Outcry (1911) was Henry James’s last novel before he died in 1916. It’s quite unlike most of his major works – light, short, and with even a happy ending. In common with some of his other novels from the ‘late period’ (such as The Other House) it’s based on an idea he had for a stage play. In fact the dialogue had already been written. James merely furnished some connecting passages between the highly stylised conversations.

It deals with a theme which was of contemporary interest – the buying up of European art treasures by rich American art collectors and capitalists – something James had touched on earlier in the figure of Adam Verver in The Golden Bowl. And the novel caught the public’s attention. It sold more copies than his other far more serious later works. It has to be said that the possible reason for this is that the novel is shorter and more easily understandable than the long and intellectually demanding works of his late period.

Henry James – by John Singer Sargeant

The Outcry – critical commentary

This is another of the late novels that James’s originally conceived for the theatre, and following the conventions of dramatic structure and narrative devices that it exists in almost a genre of its own, alongside The Awkward Age and The Other House as a novelised drama – what we would now call ‘the book of the play’.

Although it deals with the well tried Jamesian themes of New World forcefulness and acquisition pitted against Old Europe’s stiff and cautious traditions, the novel ends on what is for James an unusually light and positive note. Two couples, Lord Theign and Lady Sandgate, then his daughter Lady Grace and Hugh Crimble are happily united. There is none of the usual moral ambiguity and negative resolution of James’s other late work. What triumphs is generosity of spirit and a gesture which puts public good before private advantage. No wonder the novel was popular and a best-seller.

It has to be said however that these very elements may have contributed to The Outcry becoming one of James’s least-known and little-read works today. Because despite the fact of its success on first publication, it is now almost universally ignored.

The Outcry – study resources

The Outcry – New York Review Books edition – Amazon UK

The Outcry – New York Review Books edition – Amazon US

The Outcry – Penguin Classics edition – Amazon UK

The Outcry – Penguin Classics edition – Amazon US

The Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook edition (60 book anthology)

The Complete Plays of Henry James – Oxford: OUP – Amazon UK

The Outcry – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Outcry – plot summary

Book First. The action takes place at Dedborough, the country house of Lord Theign. He is a wealthy aristocrat with two daughters giving him problems. The eldest, Lady Kitty is a widow with substantial gambling debts owed to a duchess. The duchess’s son, Lord John, is paying court to Theign’s younger daughter, Lady Grace, with a proposal that if it is accepted, means that the debts will be written off as part of the marriage settlement.

Meanwhile Beckenridge Bender, a rich American collector arrives at Dedborough at Lord John’s invitation to buy up any rare and expensive art objects. At the same time Grace has invited Hugh Crimble, a young art connoisseur, to look over her father’s collection. He discovers that a lesser painting might in fact be a rare and undiscovered work by an old master, Mantovano.

He also finds that a Rubens in the collection has been falsely attributed, but agrees not to make his findings public so long as they agree not to let prize pieces from the collection to be sold off and taken out of the country. When he tries to pressure Lord Theign to retain the paintings as part of the national heritage, he is dismissed. But Lady Grace takes on his services instead, which displeases her father.

Book Second. The action takes place three or four weeks later in the Bruton Street home of Lady Sandgate, an old friend of Lord Theign’s. She receives Crimble, who is waiting for news confirming his attribution of the Mantovano. Crimble and Grace agree to urge Bender to seek maximum publicity for his purchases in order that he should fail – by arousing public animosity.

Crimble receives bad news on his attribution from one expert, but seeks a second opinion elsewhere. Lord Theign argues with Grace on the issue of selling paintings from his collection, and he particularly disapproves of her dealings with Crimble, with whom he forbids her to associate. She disobeys him.

Book Third. Events take place in the same location, a fortnight later. Crimble, whilst waiting for the second opinion on his art-detective work, forms a romantic alliance with Grace. Lord Theign spars with Bender over the price he will charge for his painting, and the deal is further complicated when Lady Sandgate also puts one of her own old masters into the equation.

It is confirmed that the Mantovano is a rare and priceless old master. Crimble is vindicated and his reputation as an expert established. Lord Theign and Lady Sandgate finally agree to thwart Bender by giving their family portraits to the Nation, and the deal is sealed with a romantic coupling.

Principal characters

Lord Theign	owner of Dedborough Place – a country estate
Banks	Lord Theign’s butler
Lady Amy Sandgate	an old friend of Lord Theign
Lady Kitty Imber	Lord Theign’s widowed elder daughter who has extensive gambling debts
Lady Grace	Lord Theign’s younger daughter
Lord John	a friend of Lord Theign
The Duchess	Lord John’s mother, to whom the gambling debts are owed
Beckenridge Bender	a rich American art collector
Hugh Crimble	an art conoisseur and scholar
Gotch	Lady Sandgate’s butler
The Prince	(who never appears)

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Washington Square (1880) is a superb early short novel – the tale of a young girl whose future happiness is being controlled by her strict authoritarian father. She has a handsome young suitor – but her father disapproves of him, seeing him as an opportunist and a fortune hunter. There is a battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant town house. Who wins out in the end? You will be surprised by the outcome. This is a masterpiece of social commentary, with a sensitive picture of a woman’s life. Buy the book here

The Aspern Papers (1888) is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter. But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor. Money is also at stake – but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them. Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. This collection of stories also includes three of his accomplished long short stories – The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion.
Buy the book here

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Papers

November 18, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Papers (1903) is an astonishingly prophetic story. It might have been written in 2013, rather than a hundred years earlier. James deals with all the unsavoury features now associated with contemporary media – cynical journalism, image manipulation, empty celebrity culture, and what we now call ‘spin doctoring’ – but he shows it all alive and working smoothly only two years after the death of Queen Victoria. In fact the opening of the story is unusually bitter in tone, and James quite clearly ventilates his low opinion of ‘the papers’ as he collectively designates them. Yet very unusually (for James) the story has a happy ending.

The Papers

The Papers – critical commentary

Except for the technological devices of email and mobile phones, this story has all the elements of contemporary journalism, celebrity culture, and media manipulation.

1. Journalists construct news stories out of non-events to satisfy the public appetite for scandal, sensationalism, and dramatic news. Some of Beadel-Muffett’s puffs are satirised to an almost farcical extent, such as his opinions regarding flowers at funerals or the announcement of his presence at insignificant public events. But the creation and manipulation of news is depicted with pinpoint accuracy, operating over one hundred years ago.

2. Celebrities are created out of nothing by the same means – journalists filling newspapers with promotional articles masquerading as news items. The pathetic Mortimer Marshall is swollen with pride at Howard’s article which does nothing more than describe a visit to his home.

3. News develops and is reported at a very fast rate. In the period the story is set, there were morning and evening newspapers, with supplementary lunch-time editions. This was the norm well into the 1960s. Speculations regarding Beadel-Muffet’s whereabouts are expressed in a metaphor of organic growth:

Theories and explanations sprouted at night and bloomed in the morning, to be overtopped at noon by a still thicker crop and to achieve by the evening the density of a tropical forest.

4. Unsuccessful or insignificant social and cultural events are given the ‘oxygen of publicity’. That is, favourable reviews or mentions are produced in order to create artificial ratings of approval.

5. People with money but with no talent or achievement are promoted as successful celebrities – such as Beadel-Muffet and Mortimer Marshall. This is the early twentieth-century version of Hello magazine culture.

6. There is a very close connection between politics and the press. Beadel-Muffet is a member of parliament (even though he hasn’t spoken in the House for years) and Howard Bight has successfully kept his name in front of the public, even though he has done nothing of any significance.

The Papers – study resources

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

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

Complete Stories 1898—1910 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Complete Stories 1898—1910 – Library of America – Amazon US

The Papers – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Papers – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Papers – read the story on line

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Papers – plot summary

Howard Bight is a cynical but successful young journalist with a talent for promoting the interests of would-be celebrities by placing trivial gossip articles in the newspapers. His friend Maud Blandy aspires to do the same but lacks experience and success. They discuss the case of Sir A.B.C. Beadel-Muffet KCB, MP, who is widely publicised via the reporting of completely inconsequential events.

Beadel-Muffet has become engaged to Mrs Chorner, who objects to the publicity attached to his name. Howard offers to help Maud and suggests that she interview Mrs Chorner, which she does, providing her with a faint glimmer of success. Both of them are also besieged by Mortimer Marshall, a would-be dramatist who is desperate for publicity.

When Maud expresses her disappointment at not succeeding more rapidly, Howard offers to marry her, but she does not accept his offer. He writes an empty promotional article about Mortimer Marshall, but increasingly feels that such work is demeaning and worthless.

Suddenly Beadel-Muffet disappears. Howard tempts Mortimer Marshall into an unscrupulous trap, suggesting that he could gain publicity by offering explanations for Beadel-Muffet’s disappearance. Maud suspects that Howard knows something about the case he is not revealing – even the possibility that Beadel-Muffet might be dead. She searches her conscience over their activities and feels increasingly uneasy.

It is then announced that Beadel-Muffet has committed suicide in a German hotel. Howard by this time is tiring of the whole affair, but suggests to Maud that she interview Mrs Chorner again whilst the scandal is at its height. Maud fears that Howard’s part in publicising Beadel-Muffet’s name will come to light in the police inquiry. She interviews Mrs Chorner but does not make use of the results.

Still suspecting that Howard is withholding information, they discuss revealing what they both know – but suddenly Beadel-Muffet reappears. The collapse of the whole scandal confirms both Howard and Maud that this form of journalism is sordid and unrewarding. They agree to both give it up, and she accepts his marriage proposal after all.

Principal characters

Howard Bight	a successful young London journalist
Maud Blandy	his friend, a ‘suburban young woman’
Sir A.B.C.Beadel-Muffet KCB, MP	a nonentity who has not spoken in the House for years
Mrs Chorner	his would-be fiancée – rich but ugly
Mortimer Marshall	would-be dramatist desperate for publicity

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Washington Square (1880) is a superb early short novel, It’s the tale of a young girl whose future happiness is being controlled by her strict authoritarian (but rather witty) father. She is rather reserved, but has a handsome young suitor. However, her father disapproves of him, seeing him as an opportunist and a fortune hunter. There is a battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant New York town house. Who wins out in the end? You will probably be surprised by the outcome. This is a masterpiece of social commentary, offering a sensitive picture of a young woman’s life.
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Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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tutorial and guidances notes

What is a novella?

What produces the unity?

Features of the novella

Edith Wharton – web links

tales from E.M.Forster’s reserve collection

Bloomsbury graphic and interior design

tutorial, commentary, plot summary, web links

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – commentary

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – study resources

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold – plot summary

a novel in fragments

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Other House – critical commentary

The Other House – study resources

The Other House – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

The Other Two – critical commentary

The Other Two – study resources

The Other Two – plot synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Outcry – critical commentary

The Outcry – study resources

The Outcry – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Papers – critical commentary

The Papers – study resources

The Papers – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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