American literature Archives - Page 2 of 3

Saul Bellow – greatest works

November 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Saul Bellow (1915—2005) was born of Russian-Jewish parents in Canada, but lived most of his life in Chicago, a city which features in many of his novels. His work features characters struggling to understand themselves, and searching for identity in an often irrational world. He has a wonderful ear for the rhythms of modern speech, and he captures city life particularly well. Linguistically, he manages to successfully combine an intellectual-philosophical vocabulary with the language of the street. And his narratives are often very funny. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976.

Dangling Man (1944) his first novel, is concerned with existential philosophy and the sense of identity which was much in vogue at the time of its publication. It’s an accomplished debut, thoughtful and serious, about a man who does not want to go into the army. This reflects the serious side of Bellow, who repeatedly inspects the human condition. But it doesn’t have much of the rib-tickling bravura of his later work. This is early Bellow flexing his wings. It is perhaps best appreciated after you have read some of his later works.
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The Adventures of Augie March is an ambitious, rambling, almost picaresque novel. Its first half is a moving and seemingly authentic account of a young boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression – which is where Bellow himself was raised. The story then goes off in a free-wheeling account of a series of bizarre jobs and relationships, and he ends up in Mexico. Bellow’s purpose seems to be to question how much compromise is desirable and how much is necessary, and what make us think about which parts of ourselves we want to remain individual. The second half of the novel however is far less coherent and less credible than the first – but some critics think otherwise.
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Seize the Day (1956) is a novella in which you get a sense of Bellow finding his true voice. It’s a light, swift work with dark shadows that looks at the events of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a fading charmer. He confronts his sense of personal failure and a love-hate relationship with his father. This is his day of reckoning and he is scared. In his 40s, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of havoc. In the course of this one climatic day, he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise. This is a short work which is held together by the sort of concentrated sense of unity which is the hallmark of a good novella. It is now widely regarded as the first of Bellow’s great works.
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Henderson the Rain King (1959) was his first major success. It is a comic character study of American millionaire Gene Henderson, a larger-than-life 55-year-old who has accumulated money, position, and a large family, yet nonetheless feels unfulfilled. The story plots his frustrations with modern life, and his quest for revelation and spiritual enlightenment in Africa, where he fights with a lion, is hailed as a rainmaker, and becomes heir to a kingdom. He meets two tribes, one of which he virtually destroys in an attempt to purify their main water supply of a plague of frogs which goes disastrously wrong. Much of the novel’s humour derives from such antics from Henderson, a character-exaggeration clearly based on Ernest Hemingway (who was a highly regarded writer and public figure at the time).
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Herzog (1964) became highly regarded and a classic almost as soon as it was published. It centres intensely on the life of Moses Herzog, a Jewish intellectual who is driven close to the verge of breakdown by the adultery of his second wife with his close friend. He writes letters to famous people, both living and dead – Spinoza, Nietzsche, Winston Churchill, and the President of the USA – giving them a piece of his mind and asking their advice about how to live. The novel begins with a statement which sets the tone for everything that follows: “If I am going out of my mind, it’s all right with me, thought Moses Herzog”.
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Humboldt’s Gift (1974) traces the life and memories of writer Charlie Citrine as he reflects on the influence of his boyhood friend and mentor, Humboldt. This character is based loosely upon Delmore Schwartz, the Jewish poet and short story writer whose early promise was never fulfilled. He descended into alcoholism and poverty, and died in a cheap hotel room, creating the modern version of the myth of the ‘doomed poet’. The novel deals with the ‘gift’ for aesthetic appreciation he passes on to his close friend Charlie, the narrator of the novel.
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Ravelstein (2000) is something of a double portrait. Abe Ravelstein, a mega-successful Jewish academic realises that he might be dying. He invites his friend Chick to write an biographical study of him. What we get is a not-so-thinly disguised portrait of the critic Allan Bloom written by a character who has had all the brushes with life which Bellow experienced in his own: near-death illness, late-life divorce, and happiness with a new wife. Since his death, it has become a lot clearer just how much of his own life Bellow put into his fiction.
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More on Saul Bellow
More on short stories
More on biography

The Abasement of the Northmores

December 13, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Abasement of the Northmores first appeared in the collection of tales, The Soft Side in 1900 – which was a remarkably fertile period for Henry James in terms of his production of tales. It was a year which saw the publication of Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie, The Third Person, The Great Good Place, The Tone of Time, The Tree of Knowledge, and the story which is widely regarded as his finest – The Beast in the Jungle. James produced all of these (and more) in addition to working on his next novel, The Sacred Fount (1901).

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

The Abasement of the Northmores – commentary

Towards the end of his career, James wrote a number of pieces which fictionalise his concern for public reputation and the use which might be made of his private papers after his death. He destroyed most of his own private papers during the period 1909-1915 when he suffered a number of severe illnesses.

He also wrote in stories such as The Papers of inflated and completely bogus public reputations established by nonentities and in The Private Life people who do not have any personal substance behind the facade of their public personae.

The most remarkable feature of this story is that almost nothing in the narrative is dramatised. The whole story is delivered via omniscient third person narration. And in addition, none of the active participants in the drama actually talk to each other on the page.

The reader is kept at a considerable distance from events, because no extracts from any letters are quoted, so we have no way of judging the true extent of John Northmore’s fatuousness or of Warren Hope’s neglected talents. In this sense the story is told, not shown.

The ending of the story seems particularly hurried. Within the space of less than a page, two major strands of the story are finished off and a third introduced. First, Mrs Hope concludes that Northmore’s two volumes of letters will themselves undermine his reputation. This would be ending enough, if only we had evidence on which to judge its veracity. But she then burns her own packet of letters from John Northmore – which have contributed little to the drama of the story. Then she prepares the rival collection of her own correspondence with her husband Warren that she hopes will vindicate him in public estimation. Finally she arranges for posthumous publication by changing her will.

It is significant that in the notebook entry on the original ideas for this story, James was not certain how the story would conclude:

She wants to score. She publishes—and does.—Or is there anything ELSE in it?—in connection with the letters she eventually publishes ????—???—

The Abasement of the Northmores – 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 Abasement of the Northmores – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Abasement of the Northmores – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Tales of Henry James – Norton Critical Editions – Amazon UK

The Abasement of the Northmores – 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 Abasement of the Northmores – plot summary

Part I. Having made a great reputation by using other people, Lord Northmore dies to widespread public sorrow. Mrs Warren Hope feels aggrieved that Northmore has particularly exploited her husband – his oldest friend. When Mr Warren Hope attends the Northmore burial service he contracts pneumonia and dies.

Part II. Mrs Hope subsequently receives a request from Lady Northmore for any letters written by her late husband, to be used in a memorial publication that is designed to inflate his reputation even further. Mrs Hope has a bundle of letters from Lord Northmore, who was once her suitor, but she decides not to send them. Warren Hope however has kept all Lord Northmore’s correspondence, and despite her temptation to thwart the plan, Mrs Hope hands over all the letters.

Part III. There is a great public response to Lady Northmore’s request for material, which piques Mrs Hope into the idea of publishing correspondence between herself and her husband, which she thinks will be much more interesting. She too makes a public appeal – but nobody has saved any of her husband’s letters.

Part IV. When Lord Northmore’s letters are published (in two volumes) Mrs Hope realises that they reveal nothing except his inanity, and she suspects that her late husband might even have saved so many for the very purpose of revealing the fact. She visits Lady Northmore intending to enjoy some form of triumph over her, but she leaves feeling nothing but pity.

Part V. She burn her own bundle of letters from Lord Northmore, edits her correspondence with Warren Hope, has a single copy printed, and leaves instructions in her will for it to be published after her death. ‘Her last was to hope that death would come in time.’

Principal characters

Lord John Northmore	‘a great political figure’
Lady Northmore	his wife
Warren Hope	an old friend and colleague of Northmore
Mrs Warren Hope	his wife

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

The Bostonians (1886) is a novel about the early feminist movement. The heroine Verena Tarrant is an ‘inspirational speaker’ who is taken under the wing of Olive Chancellor, a man-hating suffragette and radical feminist. Trying to pull her in the opposite direction is Basil Ransom, a vigorous young man 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.

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What Masie Knew (1897) A young girl is caught between parents who are in the middle of personal conflict, adultery, and divorce. Can she survive without becoming corrupted? It’s touch and go – and not made easier for the reader by the attentions of an older man who decides to ‘look after’ her. This comes from the beginning of James’s ‘Late Phase’, so be prepared for longer and longer sentences. In fact it’s said that whilst composing this novel, James switched from writing longhand to using dictation – and it shows if you look carefully enough – part way through the book.

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The 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.
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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 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.

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

The Age of Innocence

July 24, 2011 by Roy Johnson

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

The Age of Innocence (1920) is perhaps Edith Wharton’s most famous novel. It was written immediately after the First World War, when she had settled permanently to live just outside Paris. She takes as her subject three issues she knew very well from first-hand experience: old New York upper-class society of the 1870s, marriage, and divorce. She had been encouraged to take this as her material by her friend Henry James, who urged her to ‘do’ old New York. And like James she also included as a substantial fourth subject, the tensions between European and American culture.

first edition dust cover 1920

The Age of Innocence – plot summary

Part I

Newland Archer is a rather conventional member of ‘old money’ New York society. He works half-heartedly in a legal firm and has just become engaged to May Welland, who is also a member of a respectable family. Into this group there suddenly appears Countess Ellen Olenska, an American who has separated from her Polish husband. Archer and his set try to arrange a dinner to integrate Ellen into New York society, but they receive refusals on the unspoken grounds that she is not respectable because of her tainted past. So her relatives appeal to one of the oldest families, the Van der Luydens, who invite Ellen to meet a visiting English Duke. The occasion is a social success, and it provides Ellen with the seal of approval she needs.

Archer visits Ellen (at her request) and is impressed by her bohemianism and her radical attitudes. He feels increasingly stifled by the expectations of his family and what he sees as the dull predictability of the married life ahead of him. Almost unknown to himself, he is attracted to Ellen and what she represents as a free spirit. Archer is asked by his law firm to handle the case Ellen wishes to bring against her husband for divorce. New York society prefers to avoid such a scandal, and Archer is successful in managing to persuade her against the action.

When his fiancee May goes south for a winter holiday, Archer follows Ellen to a weekend in the country, but their intimacy is spoiled by the arrival of Julius Beaufort, of whom Archer feels jealous. Archer then abruptly visits May on her holiday, where he tries to convince himself that he still wants to marry her. He asks her to bring their marriage date forward. She wonders if there is somebody else in Archer’s life – and he is relieved to discover that she is thinking of someone in his distant past.

Returning to New York, Archer finally manages to arrange a private audience with Ellen, whereupon he declares his love for her. She reciprocates his feelings but argues that having provided her with his protective friendship, he should now stand by his engagement to May. She feels it would be dishonourable to take advantage of people who have shown her friendship. On returning home he receives a telegram from May announcing that she will marry him in a month’s time.

Part II

On his wedding day Archer is oppressed by the weight of expectancy and tradition that he realises marriage will entail. Even on his honeymoon he also realises that there is an emotional and intellectual gulf between himself and May – though he realises that she is likely to be a good and loyal wife.

He continues to be disturbed by visions of Ellen. He follows her to Boston where she has just turned down an offer to re-join her husband. Over a private lunch they agree that they must stay separate and love each other from a distance. Archer also meets Count Olenski’s emissary, who pleads that Ellen should remain in America, and reveals that Archer’s family now want her to return to her husband.

Beaufort’s bank crashes, which indirectly affects Archer’s family. At the same time the family dowager matriarch Mrs Mingott has a stroke. Ellen is summoned from a retreat in Washington to live with her and provide support. Archer proposes to Ellen that they should commit themselves to each other in some sort of alliance, but she refuses on the grounds that this would put them both outside society. She finally suggests to him that they spend just one night together before she returns to Europe.

The love tryst fails to materialize, and Ellen is given a send-off dinner, at which Archer realises that everybody believes that he and Ellen are lovers. This is their way of getting rid of the social problem without even officially recognising it. Archer has decided to follow Ellen to Europe, but when he attempts to confess all to May, she reveals that she is pregnant, and has told Ellen about it earlier.

Twenty-six years later, after a faultless life of public service, Archer is visiting Paris with his son Dallas, who has made an appointment to visit his relation Countess Olenska, who still lives on the Left Bank. Dallas reveals that his mother (as she was dying) told him about the relationship between Archer and Ellen. Archer despatches his son to meet Ellen, but does not go himself.

The Age of Innocence – study resources

The Age of Innocence – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Age of Innocence – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Age of Innocence – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

The Age of Innocence – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The Age of Innocence – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Age of Innocence – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Age of Innocence – Cliff’s Notes study guide – Amazon UK

The Age of Innocence – Norton Critical Editions – Amazon US

The Age of Innocence – eBook formats at Gutenberg

The Age of Innocence – audioBook version at Gutenberg

The Age of Innocence – Kindle eBook edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

Principal characters

Newland Archer	a young well-to-do ‘gentleman lawyer’
Mrs Adeline Archer	his old-fashioned mother
Janey Archer	his sister, an old-fashioned virgin
Mr Welland	an advanced valetudinarian
Mrs Welland	May’s mother
May Welland	Archer’s fiancee
Lawrence Lefferts	adulterous man-about-town, friend of Archer
Mr Sillerton Jackson	an authority on ‘old society’, ‘the drawing room moralist’
Miss Sophy Jackson	his sister
Mrs Manson Mingott	a rich and obese New York dowager matriarch
Lovell Mingott	her son
Julius Beaufort	an English banker of doubtful provenance
Van der Luydens	old New York society family
Mrs Lemuel Struthers	raffish nouveau riche
Duke of St Austrey	shabby and comic English toff
Ned Winsett	journalist on woman’s weekly magazine, friend of Archer
Mrs Thorley Rushworth	Archer’s former married lover
Count Stanislas Olenski	Ellen’s Polish husband
Marchioness Medora Manson	Ellen’s flambouyant and eccentric aunt
Dr Agathon Carver	a fashionable spiritualist
Mr Riviére	personal tutor and emissary of Count Olenski

The Age of Innocence – Video

1993 adaptation by Martin Scorsese

Other works by Edith Wharton

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

More on Edith Wharton
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Beast in the Jungle

November 17, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Beast in the Jungle (1903) is widely regarded as the greatest of James’s short stories – if not one of the greatest stories of all time. It is certainly one of his most frequently reprinted and anthologised works. And as if to mark the begining of modernism in the twentieth century, it is a story in which almost nothing happens. In fact that is one of the key features of the story.

It is worth noting that although Henry James made a number of technical innovations to both the story and the novel as literary genres, he gave his shorter works the collective name of tales. These works are rarely as short, condensed, and understated as we now think of narratives categorised as short stories: they are often quite long; many deal in a number of inter-related themes; and some become novellas and even short novels.

The Beast in the Jungle – critical commentary

This story has been the subject of enormous amounts of critical commentary – partly because it is such a powerful narrative, and partly because its eventless and abstract subject lends itself to a number of possible interpretations. These are variations of three basic types – existential, biographical, and psychological.

Existential

It’s quite possible to see the story as an expression of existential angst some years before such philosophic notions became popular. After all, Kafka would be writing about lonely figures trapped inside vague fears and presentiments only a few years after James wrote The Beast in the Jungle.

Marcher is after all a civil servant, and although we have no account of his working life, it is quite clear that it is regimented and unexciting. He goes to the opera with May, and they even play piano transcriptions together, but his life is dominated by his idée fixe. He lives in London and his situation is that of an isolated city-dweller.

He feels a presentiment, and is not even sure if what awaits him in life will be of a positive or negative nature. That is part of the existential threat – not knowing what it will be and when it will come. He fears that it will be ‘tremendous’, but does not know in what way. That is its existential nature: it is a sort of metaphysical threat – something abstract and intagible, but felt as very real.

Biographical

Even the most cursory acquaintance with James’s own life cannot but suggest that he was reflecting on his own predicament in many of his late stories, and in particular The Beast in the Jungle. Throughout his life he had enjoyed relationships with a number of women – but only as friends. And he also worried terribly about the idea that he ought to be married. It was the normal, acceptable thing to do, but he could not face the prospect of commitment.

But many of his stories reflect a deep-seated fear of women as potential or actual sources of problems. And of course many post-Freudian commentators have observed the ssubmerged homo-erotic elements in his work.

Marcher rationalises his fear of marriage by claiming that it would be unfair to marry someone when he does not know what the outcome of his ‘destiny’ will be. He cannot marry May because it would be unfair to subject her to such uncertainty. That is his rationale – but in fact he continues to harrass her with discussions of his fear right up to the point of her death.

Psychological

Marcher is a man imprisoned in a solipsistic world. He has conceived this notion that something sets him aside from his fellow creatures. He believes he is destined for a special destiny. It might not be positive, it might even be tragic – but it will be something outstanding or momentous – which will confirm his superiority over other lesser beings.

He has no evidence to support the validity of this supposition. He merely feels it and asserts it. and his behaviour is guided entirely with reference to the belief.

May Bartram’s own personal tragedy is that she devotes her life to supporting him in this unfounded notion. We are led to believe from the inferences in the text that she hopes he will one day realise that she is the thing that is to happen to him. But of course he doesn’t realise this – because he is so wrapped up in himself.

Marcher’s sudden awareness of his wasted life at the end of the story is certainly a dramatic resolution – but in fact the story reaches its heart-stopping structural climax three-quarters way through when May comes as close as she ever does to offering herself directly to Marcher. She is ill; she can hardly get out of her chair; and Marcher is quizzing her relentlessly about the ‘thing’ that is to happen to him – yet she gets up and presents herself to him:

“I’m with you – don’t you see – still”. And as if to make it more vivid to him she rose from her chair – a movement she seldom made in these days – and showed herself, all draped and all soft, in her fairness and slimness. “I haven’t forsaken you.”

This is a very heart-rending, and a beautifully understated pivotal moment in the development of this apparently eventless story. Marcher of course fails to recognise or respond to what her words and movement signify. He is so blinded by his own egotism that May’s gesture is completely ignored. Marcher merely worries that she’s going to die before he finds the answer, and he even asks her (whilst she actually is dying), if he is going to suffer.

The Beast in the Jungle – 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 Beast in the Jungle – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon UK

The Beast in the Jungle – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon US

The Beast in the Jungle – Dover Thrift edition

The Beast in the Jungle – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Beast in the Jungle – 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 Beast in the Jungle – plot summary

John Marcher is a minor civil servant with a library and a garden in the country. Visiting a stately home he encounters May Bartram who he met ten years previously in Italy. She reveals that he confided to her his abiding notion that something lay ahead for him in life which would have far-reaching consequences. He confesses that the fear still haunts him and invites her to join him in waiting and watching to see what it will be.

She inherits enough to buy a house in London, and they continue to meet regularly, comparing their thoughts and observations on the issue which continues to preoccupy him. As the years go by they discuss the problem ad nauseam. He realises that she is the only other person who knows about his fear, he is very dependent on her, and wonders what he would do if anything should happen to her.

He also begins to wonder if their relationship is causing her to be ‘talked about’, but she reassures him that she is doing as she wishes. He suspects that she secretly knows what the thing or the event will be, but isn’t telling him because it might be so horrible.

They grow old together, and she finally becomes ill. He is alarmed that she might die before revealing to him what it will be, and he makes a final plea for reassurance or relief. She tells him that the ‘thing’ has already happened and that he is not conscious of it.

She dies shortly afterwards and he is left wondering what it could be. He travels abroad, but finds no respite. Finally, whilst visiting her grave one day, he sees a man similar to himself who is obviously grieving a lost loved one in a passionate and deep manner. Marcher realises that he has lived his entire life without any deep feelings or passion of any kind. Moreover he realises that the thing for which he has been waiting was May Bartram and her offer of herself to him, and that he has missed his chance because of his egoism and selfishness.

Principal characters

John Marcher	a minor civil servant
May Bartram	a young English woman
Weatherhead	an ‘almost famous’ house where they meet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bench of Desolation

November 24, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Bench of Desolation (1909) comes from the late period of James’s career as a writer of short stories, and with such a title readers might understandably assume it was similar to his late dark masterpieces such as The Beast in the Jungle and The Altar of the Dead. Indeed, the first two thirds of the story are marked by a mood of gloom which intensifies as the misery of the protagonist’s life becomes more protracted. But this atmosphere is completely dispelled by a resolution to the story which is as unexpected as it is improbable and unexplained.

a boring seafront

The Bench of Desolation – critical commentary

Is this story a lavish piece of wish-fulfilment on James’s part? It starts with the subject of one of his recurrent themes – the fearful prospect of marriage and its responsibilities. In fact it encompasses the fear of both the prospect and the consequences of marriage reflected in legal confrontation, public exposure, and financial punishment, followed by social death.

This clearly characterises the first part of the story, as Herbert Dodd is projected into his downward spiral of doom. But this scenario is completely dispelled in the latter part of the story. There is no credible justification provided for Herbert Dodd’s good fortune, and one can only think that it’s a form of wish-fulfilment on James’s part to come up with a resolution to this story which involves an old flame emerging from the past to offer both undiminished adoration and a large pot of money.

In fact the story suffers credibility weaknesses on two counts. First of all, no convincing motivation is provided for Kate Cookham’s ten year vigil. She has ruined Herbert financially by the original out-of-court settlement. He has subsequently married, become a widower, and sunk even lower in the social scale with no intervening contact between them to sustain either love or good will. But we are expected to believe that she has loved him and wished for his best interests throughout the decade. She even claims to have ‘hated’ what she was doing to him for ten years. We are given no explanation for her behaviour – only her statement of intent.

The second weakness is that not only has she worked and saved for a decade to repay him, but she is repaying his original two hundred and seventy pounds with interest. This original sum has accumulated simple interest of one hundred pounds a year to produce a total of twelve hundred and sixty pounds. That is a rate of return of thirty-seven per cent which even in the most prosperous years of the industrial revolution and the high point of British imperialism would have been impossible. Interest rates historically hover between three and ten percent. We can’t expect novelists to be professional economists or financial analysts, but we can object to their providing fairy tale pots of gold to furnish plot resolutions.

The story also has a rather uneven tone. At the beginning of the narrative Herbert Dodd is an almost comic figure – a vain, somewhat self-regarding character with a disdainful attitude to his low station in life. He could be seen as the Mr Pooter of the south coast. But as the misery of his blighted life begins to bite deeper, his seat on ‘the bench of desolation’ is a much more sombre affair. His state of tired resignation to a completely uneventful existence is something we are invited to take seriously. Having established this deeper mood, one would expect James to lead it towards a more logical and tragic conclusion, but instead of turning the screw tighter, he releases it to return to a mood of almost drawing room comedy.

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

The Bench of Desolation – 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 Collected Stories – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon UK

The Bench of Desolation – read the story on line

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

The Prefaces of Henry James – Introductions to his works – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Bench of Desolation – plot summary

Herbert Dodd has inherited a shop selling old books and prints in a ‘fourth-rate’ seaside town on the south coast of England. He becomes engaged to Kate Cookham, one of his customers, but when he changes his mind she threatens to sue him for breach of promise. He settles out of court for four hundred pounds compensation, mortgages his business, and in fact only pays her two hundred and seventy pounds.

He confides his plight to an old flame Nan Drury, and ends up marrying her. They have two children who die, as does she. The solicitors handling his mortgage go into liquidation because one of its partners embezzles from the firm, and his business is seized by creditors. He gets a job working as a petty clerk for the local gas works and begins to wonder in his misery at what might have happened if he had challenged Kate Cookham over the four hundred pound settlement.

Ten years pass, and his life is reduced to a meaningless void, when suddenly a much-improved Kate Cookham returns from London, seeks him out on his lonely seafront bench, and invites him to tea at her hotel. She reveals that she has taken his money, invested it, and wants to pay him back – with interest, because she loved him all the time. He is shocked by the news of her offer, but a week later he accepts the money – and her.

Principal characters

Herbert Dodd	a somewhat effete dealer in old books and prints
Kate Cookham	a plain private teacher and governess
Nan Drury	an old flame of Henry’s who he marries
Bill Frankel	a man known to Kate of whom Henry feels jealous

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

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

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bostonians

September 22, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Bostonians was first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885-1886, then as a three volume novel in February 1886. It is generally regarded at the high point of what is called the ‘middle period’ of Henry James’ development as a novelist. He had re-visited America in the middle of the decade following the death of his parents; the novel is set in Boston and New York; and it clearly reflects some of his contemporary impressions on the nation, written as a native American. The novel as a matter of fact includes some rather touching reflections on the Civil War, which had only concluded twenty years before (and in which James had not participated). But its principal subject matter is ‘The Woman Question’ – that is, the conflict between traditional views of the role of women in society, and the views of suffragists and what today would be called supporters of women’s liberation.

Summer in New England – Frank W. Benson (1862-1951)

The Bostonians – critical commentary

Narrative

Henry James uses third person omniscient narrative mode for the majority of the novel. That is, he knows all the events that take place and he reveals the inner feelings and thoughts of his characters. But from time to time he slips into a first person narrative mode to pretend that he has only a partial view of events.

I know not what may have been the reality of Miss Chancellor’s other premonitions, but there is no doubt that in this respect she took Verena’s measure on the spot.

He also comments on the narrative itself, revealing himself as the author.

If we were at this moment to take, in a single glance, an inside view of Mrs Burrage (a liberty we have not yet ventured on), I suspect we should find that she was considerably exasperated by her visitor’s superior tone, at seeing herself regarded by this dry, shy, obstinate, provincial young woman as superficial.

Technically, this is a curious mixture of narrative modes – one moment claiming to know the innermost shifts in his characters’ feelings, and the next moment feigning ignorance. It perhaps reflects the ambiguity and uncertainty that he increasing explored into his novels from this period onwards.

It is a very typical James narrative in being composed of a series of rather static tableaux. The locations of the action shift between Boston and New York, but the drama unfolds through a series of meetings where the focus of attention is largely on the psychological state of the characters.

Feminist politics

When the novel first appeared it was criticised by much of its American audience, largely on the grounds that James had satirised some well known figures. More than one hundred years later, these issues have faded, and it is possible to take a more balanced view of the reform movement that he portrays.

It is quite clear that the most active and senior women in the suffrage movement – Olive Chancellor and Mrs Farrage – are depicted negatively as vicious harpies. They are both more concerned with social control mechanisms and feeding their own egos than genuine concern for women as individuals. Even their male counterpart Selah Tarrant is revealed as a tin pot shaman – a bogus snake-oil salesman who virtually sells his own daughter.

But this negative picture is balanced by the positive characterisation of Doctor Prance and Miss Birdseye. Doctor Prance is a professional young woman who puts her own ego to one side in pursuit of her interest in medicine and science. And Miss Birdseye has a life history of genuine devotion to the cause. She has campaigned in the South for the abolition of slavery, and has taught negroes (as James calls them in the language of the period) to read and write.

It is significant that both Miss Birdseye and Dr Prance have friendly relations with Basil Ransom, whereas Olive Chancellor immediately takes a visceral dislike to him.

The Boston marriage

The other major issue in the novel is the relationship between Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant – and by implication their separate relationships with Basil Ransom. The term Boston marriage is used to describe two women living together, independent of financial support of a man.

Olive Chancellor has inherited wealth, so she is able to pay off Mr and Mrs Tarrant to take control of Verena and bring her to live under the same roof. However, contemporary readers do not need brass plaques on their doors to recognise that what James depicts on Olive Chancellor’s part is a passionate lesbian desire for Verena.

Olive is totally possessive of Verena, and she has an equally passionate hatred of any potential rivals – particularly of men. She repeatedly admonishes Verena for not disliking men generically. Henry Burrage’s interest in Verena is abhorrent to Olive, but not nearly as much as that of Basil Ransom. Olive is a general man hater, but in particular she sees the tall Mississippian as an erotic rival.

In fact the whole of the novel is an account of the psychological war between Olive and Basil for possession of Verena. Despite Basil’s conservative (Neanderthal) views on the role of women, Verena is eventually attracted to him by what we might nowadays call his personal magnetism and his integrity. In the end she does submit to his wish for a woman who will give up her role in public life for an existence which is entirely domestic.

At the end of the novel she leaves with tears in her eyes which were ‘not the last she was destined to shed’. So James leaves the triangular struggle between these characters as a surprising triumph for Basil Ransom, a failure for Olive Chancellor, but a very ambiguous resolution for Verena Tarrant.

The Civil War

Basil Ransom is from Mississippi, and has fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederates – that is the slave-owning southern states. In fact his family has lost its property (and its slaves) because of the war – which is why Basil has taken up work in the legal profession and moved north to seek employment.

He clings to the aristocratic values of politeness, courtesy, and reactionary social values, and is clearly not suited to the world of commerce in which he finds himself. It is these views and attitudes which arouse the antagonism of (some of) the feminists, because their cause has its roots in the Abolitionist anti-slavery movement in which characters such as Miss Birdseye and Mrs Tarrant’s family have been active

In one of the pivotal meetings of the novel Verena Tarrant takes him to look round Harvard University in Cambridge, just outside Boston. There in the Memorial Hall he looks on the names of those who have died on the opposite side.

The effect of the place is singularly noble and solemn … It stands there for duty and honour, it speaks of sacrifice and example, seems a kind of temple to youth, manhood, generosity. Most of them were young, all were in their prime, and all of them had fallen … For Ransom these things were not a challenge or a taunt; they touched him with respect, with the sentiment of beauty. He was capable of being a generous foeman, and he forgot, now, the whole question of sides and parties; the simple emotion of the old fighting-time came back to him, and the monument around him seemed an embodiment of that memory; it arched over his friends as well as enemies, the victims of defeat as well as the sons of triumph.

Henry James was himself from the northern states, and was eligible for conscription when the war began. But he rather conveniently developed a back problem (‘that obscure hurt’) when it was time to join the Unionist army.

The Bostonians – study resources

The Bostonians – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Bostonians – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Bostonians – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon UK

The Bostonians – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Bostonians – Modern Library – Amazon UK

The Bostonians – DVD film version – Amazon UK

The Bostonians – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Bostonians – CD audioBook version (unabridged) – Amazon UK

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

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

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

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

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Bostonians – plot summary

In 1875 young Mississippian lawyer Basil Ransom is invited to visit his cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston. She is a feminist and radical social reformer, who takes him to one of their meetings where he encounter Verena Tarrant, an inspirational speaker. Olive immediately feels a passionate attachment to Verena. Basil likes her as an attractive young woman, but he thinks her ‘inspirations’ are dubious, and largely influenced by her father, who is a ‘mesmeric healer’ (and a complete fraud).

The relationship between Olive and Verena develops rapidly, encourages by Mrs Tarrant, who sees it as a source of social advantage. Mr (‘Dr’) Tarrant sees it as a potential source of income, which he conspicuously lacks. Olive is so possessive of Verena that she asks her to promise not to marry. Olive wants to control Verena for the cause of greater women’s suffrage, but it is clear that she also wishes to control her emotionally. The journalist Matthias Pardon proposes to ‘promote’ Verena as a money-making attraction, but Olive refuses to allow it. He then proposes marriage instead, but Verena turns down his offer.

Olive then pays the Tarrants (who she dislikes intensely) a large sum to take Verena to live with her, which she does willingly, embracing the suffrage ideology which Olive promotes. However, whereas Verena thinks some men might be acceptable, Olive thinks that all men are not. The two women embark together on a trip to Europe.

Meanwhile, Basil Ransom has not done well in his legal business in New York. He is tempted by what appears to be Adeline Luna’s hints of marriage. But when he hears that Verena has returned from Europe he goes to visit her in Boston.

She shows him around Harvard University, feeling that she is betraying the understanding she shares with Olive that men should be discouraged. Ransom patronises and insults her regarding woman’s suffrage issues, but it is quite clear that he is deeply attracted to her. A great deal turns on whether their meeting will be revealed to Olive or not.

Ransom is invited to Verena’s lecture at Mrs Burrage’s house in New York, where he continues to clash ideologically with Olive, is ambushed by Adelina, and realises that he has fallen in love with Verena.

There are repeated scenes of conflict between Ransom and Olive as he contrives to meet Verena privately. Olive interrogates Verena regarding how much contact she has had with Ransom. Verena tells her everything – except the day she spent alone with him in Boston.

Mrs Burrage then summons Olive and asks her to support her son Henry’s bid to marry Verena. Olive thinks that this might be less ‘dangerous’ (as she sees it) than an alliance with Basil Ransom.

Whilst Olive and Verena are in New York, Basil engineers a private meeting with Verena and persuades her to go for a walk in Central Park. There he reveals his literary ambitions to her, and despite their differences over the role of women in society, she becomes more sympathetic to him.

Some months later Basil goes to visit the two women whilst they are on summer holiday, preparing for a major public lecture by Verena. He reveals that he has had an article accepted, and proposes marriage to her.

Verena realises that she is in love with Basil, and is in great anguish regarding his offer, since it would involve her giving up her work as a public speaker. Olive is in even greater anguish, realising that she is in danger of losing Verena to ‘the enemy’.

Just as Basil realises he is having an effect on Verena, Olive thwarts him by spiriting her away in collusion with her parents. Basil searches, but cannot find her. But he appears in Boston on the occasion of her major public lecture. His appearance there unnerves her, the lecture does not take place, which causes a scandal, and Basil leaves with Verena in tears.

first edition published by Macmillan

The Bostonians – principal characters

Basil Ransom	a lawyer from Mississippi, working in New York
Olive Chancellor	a feminist and reformer, living in Boston – Ransom’s cousin
Mrs Adelina Luna	Olive’s younger sister
Newton	Mrs Luna’s son
Miss Birdseye	elderly supporter of women’s causes
Mrs Farringer	feminist and demagogue
Amariah Farrinder	her husband
Dr Mary J. Prance	young boyish physician, lodging in same house as Miss Birdseye
‘Dr’ Selah Tarrant	mesmeric healer and pious fraud
Mrs Tarrant	daughter of famous abolitionist
Verena Tarrant	their daughter – inspirational speaker – with bright red hair
Matthias Pardon	a young publicity-seeking journalist
Henry Burrage	art-collecting Harvard ‘student’ and admirer of Verena
Mrs Burrage	society woman – Henry’s mother
Miss Catching	a librarian at Harvard University
Mr Filer	Olive Chancellor’s lecture agent

The Bostonians – film adaptation

Directed by Merchant-Ivory (1984)

Starring Christopher Reeve and Vanessa Redgrave

Watch full length movie

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Custom of the Country

July 20, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Custom of the Country (1913) presents a central character who ignores any positive influences which surround her, and always does the wrong thing with the worst possible motives. The novel deals with issues which now seem amazingly contemporary – the striving for wealth, fashionability, and a nouveau riche lifestyle which is something like an early twentieth century version of Hello magazine. And yet because these issues are connected so closely with class and wealth the narrative also has its ideological roots in Balzac.

Edith Wharton

When Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park she created a heroine (Fanny Price) who is increasingly difficult for readers to tolerate – because she never puts a foot wrong. No matter that all the other characters around her have human weaknesses and failings, Fanny Price suffers in silence and always does the Right Thing. This makes her tediously self-righteous and insufferably priggish. Edith Wharton’s Undine Spragg is the opposite: she is insufferably self-seeking and obnoxious, and she claws her way to success by trampling on anyone who gets in her way.

The Custom of the Country – critical commentary

This is a study of ruthless social ambition, material greed, and self-indulgence which seems almost to presage the bitchy anti-heroines of contemporary television soap operas. Undine Spragg has almost no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, and in some senses it is a mystery why Edith Wharton shoud have spent so much of her creative energy documenting such a negative example of American social life.

Undine Spragg claims that her ambition is simply “amusement with respectability”, and a number of commentators have been happy enough to take her at face value. But this simple formula is neither truthful not sufficiently comprehensive. Her notion of ‘amusement’ also includes constant change. For instance, she is married four times within a decade. It also includes an extravagant standard of living and self-indulgent expenditure on an almost industrial scale. Needless to say, it also includes egotism writ large and no effort on her part to play any constructive part in creating the ‘amusement’.

The term ‘respectability’ is in fact her portmanteau term for both fashionability and high class – and she is incapable of making the necessary distinction between the two. She mistakes Ralph Marvell’s class for wealth which he doesn’t have, and Raymond de Chelles’s class for fashionability, of which he and his family are the antithesis.

The only accurate assessment she makes is to see that she and her ex-husband Elmer Moffatt are two of the same kind – new world fortune seekers who wish nothing to stand in the way of their ambition.

It’s a mystery why Edith Wharton should have them both triumphant in the end. The only disappointment Undine Spragg faces is the recognition that there are some echelons of society which will remain forever shut off to her. As a divorced woman, she can never become an ambassador’s wife. Oh dear.

The Custom of the Country – study resources

The Custom of the Country – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Custom of the Country – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Custom of the Country – Bantam Classics – Amazon UK

The Custom of the Country – Bantam Classics – Amazon US

The Custom of the Country – Penguin classics – Amazon UK

The Custom of the Country – Penguin classics – Amazon US

The Custom of the Country – eBook formats at Gutenberg

The Custom of the Country – audioBook version at LibriVox

The Custom of the Country – audio CD (unabridged) – Amazon UK

The Custom of the Country – Kindle eBook edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Custom of the Country – plot summary

Undine Spragg is an ambitious and visually attractive young woman with decent but indulgent parents who she has persuaded to move from their mid-western province to upper class New York. This is to enable her to realise her dreams of becoming a fashionable socialite. She is uneducated, gauche, and snobbish, and everything she does is motivated by vanity, greed, laziness, and self-interest.

By mixing with what she thinks are the right sorts of people, she manages to secure a husband from ‘old money’ New York society – not realising that he has no personal wealth and very few social prospects. She quickly becomes bored with him, and even though he takes up a job to provide them with additional income, she overspends, ‘borrows’ money from one of her married admirers (Peter Van Degan), and even neglects her own child.

Elmer Moffatt, a shady figure from her past keeps appearing in the story. He agrees to remain silent about a previous engagement in her past if she will introduce him to people of influence. She is eventually instrumental in facilitating a business venture between Moffatt and her own husband. They both profit from the deal – but she uses the money to leave her husband and child whilst she goes on an extended trip to Paris, where she hopes to secure a richer new husband in the form of Van Degan.

Whilst her husband looks after their child and works hard to pay her bills, she goes on a tour of European pleasure resorts with Van Degan. She receives messages that her husband is desperately ill, but chooses to ignore them. Van Degan takes her to out-of-the-way spots where they will not be seen, and when she returns to the United States in order to secure a divorce, he abandons her.

As a divorced woman, Undine fails to reconnect with New York society, so she returns to Paris using her parents as a social smokescreen, When they return to the USA she stays on, mixing with minor aristocracy, and re-meeting Raymond de Chelles, a former admirer.

Still living beyond her means, she asks Elmer Moffatt for money, which he refuses, In order to marry Raymond de Chelles (who is a french Catholic) she needs a papal annulment of her marriage, which costs a lot of money. So she claims custody of her child Paul (who she has abandoned) hoping that Ralph will buy back from her the right to keep his son. Ralph borrows money and invests it in a speculative business deal with Elmer Moffatt to raise the funds.

The scheme fails to materialise, at which point it is revealed that Undine had previously been married to Moffatt (which explains the pact of confidence between them). In desperation at his predicament, Ralph shoots himself – which leaves Undine a widow rather than a divorced woman. She inherits Ralph’s money, and the portion allotted to her own son, and marries Raymond de Chelles. A year later the business deal with Moffatt pays off, and she receives that money too.

However, she feels stifled and trapped in the marriage with de Chelles and his very traditional family, and when Moffatt turns up yet again to buy some of the de Chelles family antiques heirlooms, Undine can see that he has become a very rich and even influential man. She proposes a secret affair with him – which he refuses, insisting on a proper marriage.

As the novels ends, Undine is re-married to Moffatt and lives at the pinnacle of New York society – but she is already becoming bored with her fourth husband and realises that there are some echelons of society to which she will never be able to aspire.

Principal characters

Undine Spragg	a social climber from midwest USA
Abner Spragg	her indulgent father, a financier
Leota Spragg	her indulgent mother
Ralph Marvell	poetic aspirations, lightweight son of old New York family
Mrs Heeny	manicurist, masseuse, and confidant to Mrs Spragg
Elmer Moffatt	business man from Undine’s provincial past
Peter Van Degan	rich, loud, boorish socialite
Clare Van Degan	his wife, who is in love with Ralph
Raymond de Chelles	a French aristocrat with a traditional family
Paul Marvell	Undine and Ralph’s son, who lives with his father, then his stepfather
Claud Washingham Popple	a society artist who paints Undine’s portrait

Edith Wharton at her writing desk

Other works by Edith Wharton

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.
Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

Edith Wharton – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on Edith Wharton
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The House of Mirth

July 12, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, further reading

The House of Mirth (1905) was Edith Wharton’s first major success as a novelist. She had published short stories before, and even a best-seller on interior design – The Decoration of Houses (1897). Indeed she went on in her prolific career to produce travel writing, essays, journalism, and memoirs. But from The House of Mirth onwards, she regarded herself as a serious novelist – even though she claimed that her apprenticeship to the art of fiction only ended with the publication of her novella Ethan Frome in 1911.

Edith Wharton – portrait

She wrote about a subject she knew intimately – the upper echelons of ‘old money’ New York society and their amazingly clannish not-to-say snobbish notions of what was and was not socially acceptable. Everything rested on the appearance of respectability, no matter how far its remoteness from the truth of things.

Like other forms of upper class and aristocratic society its main impetus towards the preservation of power and influence via marriages based on wealth – preferably inherited. The possession of a family fortune means that a complete nonentity such as Percy Gryce is regarded as a desirable catch for any New York matron wishing to marry off a daughter, whereas even someone as beautiful and intelligent as Lily Bart has been unable to locate a husband, because she has no grand inheritance and has fallen in the social pecking order since the collapse of her father’s business. .

The House of Mirth – plot summary

Part I

Lily Bart is a twenty-nine year old New York woman who has been raised in an indulgent and well-to-do family. When her father’s business crashes and both parents die, she is taken in by her rather strict and old-fashioned aunt Julia. Despite her good looks and lively intelligence Lily has been unable to find a husband and fears that her times and chances are running out. She is attracted to the lawyer Lawrence Selden, but he feels that he does not have enough money to afford marriage.

The novel begins with a scene in which Selden invites her to afternoon tea in his bachelor rooms – an innocent enough gesture, but one which ultimately is to have a decisive influence on her destiny. She is spotted by two people leaving the building, and both of them seek to profit from their knowledge later in the story. Lily mixes amongst people who are much wealthier than she is, and she feel both financially and socially disadvantaged. She entertains the notion of attracting Percy Gryce, a boring but wealthy young bachelor. However, distracted by her interest in Lawrence Selden, she misses her chance to captivate Gryce, and he marries somebody else.

Having accrued gambling debts, and feeling that she cannot afford to keep up with the set with whom she mixes, she turns in desperation to Gus Trenor, a businessman who agrees to help her financially – but under rather vague terms that Lily chooses not to understand. She thereby puts herself under his influence, which includes being friendly to Simon Rosedale, a Jewish businessman who is buying his way into polite New York society.

One day a cleaner from Selden’s rooms (which Rosedale owns) blackmails Lily with some compromising letters she has salvaged from Selden’s wastebasket – thinking they are from Lily. They are in fact from Bertha Dorset, a married woman, but Lily pays them to protect Selden – and keeps them.

Enjoying newfound affluence as a result of Gus Trenor’s investment on her behalf, Lily is uncomfortable when he presses for reciprocal favours, but feels obliged to accept his ever closer friendship – even though he is married to one of her friends. In doing so, she develops something of an unfavourable reputation – which is reported to her aunt Julia by jealous rivals.

Gus Trenor eventually tricks her into joining him late at night in his town house where he is alone, and once again he presses her for reciprocity. Lily narrowly escapes his clutches, but is seen leaving the house by Lawrence Selden, who happens to be looking for her at the time.

Lily confesses her debts to aunt Julia, who refuses to help her. Finally Lily pins all her hopes on Lawrence Selden, who at one of their last meetings has declared that he could only help her by loving her. She has an appointment to meet him, but he doesn’t come. Instead, Simon Rosedale arrives with an offer to help her out of her financial problems, which she politely refuses.

Part II

Lily is invited on to a Mediterranean cruise by Bertha Dorset, and this distraction allows her to put her financial and social worries behind her. But the invitation is a ruse to keep George Dorset occupied whilst Bertha enjoys an affair with Ned Silverton, a young man with poetic inclinations. When a rift between the Dorsets threatens to become public, they close ranks and Lily is expelled publicly from the cruise.

She returns to America to find that her Aunt has died, leaving the bulk of her estate to her longtime companion Gerty, and Lily a legacy of $10,000 – precisely the amount she owes to Gus Trenor. Rejected by her former friends, she begins to mix with ‘new money’ people who are trying to climb into fashionable New York society. She is pursued by George Dorset, but rejects his advances, and finally offers herself to Simon Rosedale. But he will only accept her if she uses Lawrence Selden’s letters to bring about a truce with Bertha Dorset, which she refuses to do.

She goes to work as an assistant to a rich divorcee who is trying to gain entry into society, but Lily realises that this will once again tarnish her reputation, whether she is successful or not. So she then takes employment as a milliner, moves into a cheap lodging house, and begins to take comfort in drugs.

In despair, she finally sets out to reveal her possession of the letters to Bertha Dorset, but changes her mind when she realises that to do so will besmirch Lawrence Selden’s name. Instead, she calls on him to say goodbye and burns the letters on the fire whilst he is making tea for her.

Next day Selden has finally decided to act on his intention to help Lily instead of being merely a spectator to her life. But he arrives to find that she has died of an overdose, leaving behind a cheque to pay for all her debts to Gus Trenor.

The House of Mirth – study resources

The House of Mirth – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The House of Mirth – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The House of Mirth – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

The House of Mirth – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The House of Mirth – Norton Critical Editions – Amazon US

The House of Mirth – Cliff’s Notes – Amazon UK

The House of Mirth – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The House of Mirth – audioBook version at LibriVox

The House of Mirth – DVD of 2007 Terrence Davie movie – Amazon UK

The House of Mirth – Kindle eBook edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The House of Mirth – characters

Lily Bart	a beautiful and intelligent woman – (29) an orphan, living with her Aunt Julia
Hudson Bart	her hard-working father, who is ruined financially
Lawrence Selden	a middle-class lawyer, sceptic, and bachelor who believes he doesn’t have enough money to marry
Percy Gryce	a rich, dull, bachelor and bibliophile
Mrs Gryce	a stern widow and matriarch, who controls her son
Simon Rosedale	a successful Jewish businessman who wishes to gain entry to upper class society
Gus Trenor	a coarse, gauche, and rich businessman
Judy Trenor	his snobbish and manipulative wife (40)
Gertrude Farish	Selden’s unmarried cousin who does charity work
Julia Peniston	Lily’s strict aunt, who looks after her following the death of her parents
Jack Stepney	Lily’s improvident cousin
Grace Stepney	his sister, companion to Mrs Peniston, who inherits her wealth
Bertha Dorset	a conniving socialite and flirt, who had a former relationship with Lawrence Selden
George Dorset	Bertha’s indulgent and cuckolded husband
Carry Fisher	an enthusiast for causes
Mrs Haffen	cleaner at the Benedick, who discovers the letters
The Wellington Brys	society would-bes
Ned Silverton	young hanger-on with poetic inclinations and an addiction to gambling
Little Dabham	society gossip columnist for ‘Riviera Notes’
Paul Morpeth	society artist who arranges the tableaux vivants at the Bry’s party
June & Ann Silverton	Ned’s sisters, who are trying to pay off his debts
Norma Hatch	young nouveau rich divorcee who employs Lily as a ‘secretary’
Nettie Struther	working-class young woman who is grateful for Lily’s help

The House of Mirth – film adaptation

2000 movie adaptation by Terence Davies

Manuscript page from The House of Mirth

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on Edith Wharton
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

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Patagonia

November 4, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Patagonia (1888) like many of James’s other stories, has its origins in an anecdote relayed to him over the dinner table – a story which he elaborated and refined. It is also his ‘response’ to a very similar tale by Anthony Trollope called The Journey to Panama which also features a young woman on a long sea voyage going to meet the man to whom she is betrothed. It’s also another variation on his Daisy Miller theme – the ‘new type’ of woman or the ‘self-made girl’ who pushes against the boundaries of social convention – at a cost to herself.

nineteenth century transatlantic steamer

The Patagonia – critical commentary

Class and behaviour

This story, like James’s other stories Daisy Miller and Pandora features a young woman of a ‘new type’ who flouts the conventions of socially acceptable behaviour established by members of the upper class. Grace Mavis is from a family in business class who live in a suburb of Boston for people who are socially aspirant. In fact her father has lost his ‘position’ and has become an invalid. Her mother seeks the social protection of Mrs Nettlepoint during the voyage from Boston to Liverpool – and can only do so with the recommendation of a mutual (and upper-class) friend Mrs Allen. Mrs Nettlepoint therefore feels she has a social obligation to protect Grace’s reputation whilst she is in transit to her husband-to-be.

But as the voyage begins, Grace feels free to behave as she wishes, and we ultimately learn that faced with the prospect of a marriage which she fears, she is affected by the romantic prospects that Jasper Nettlepoint appears to be offering her. She defies the conventions of restriction placed on an unmarried woman spending a significant amount of time in public with a single man. This at the time would be seen as behaviour compromising her reputation.

Grace as victim

It’s possible to argue that Grace is a victim of New England rectitude, the viciousness of social gossip, and the shortsighted meddling interference of the narrator. As a middle-class girl she has few prospects of marriage other than the one offered to her when she was twenty. Because of her father’s redundancy and illness, the family’s fortunes have slid further downhill. She is on her way to the one poor prospect still open to her – marriage to the feckless David Porterfield.

In the spiritually liberating ambiance of a cross-Atlantic voyage, she is swept off her feet by the attentions of a rich and handsome younger man. But she is surrounded by gossip and intrigue. Mrs Nettlepoint wishes to protect her son from what she sees as a socially improper alliance (to a lower class woman). The narrator wishes to fend off Jasper’s attentions, unless he is prepared to accept the consequences – which would be to protect Grace’s reputation by marrying her. Meanwhile characters such as Mrs Peck fuel the dining room with minute by minute reports on Grace’s movements.

Grace has a passionate interview with Mrs Nettlepoint, defending her actions. But she is a single spirit battling against a much stronger social current. She realises that her temporary happiness will be taken from her, and she feels that what lies ahead will be like a living death (despite her protestations to the contrary). So she takes what she sees as the only way out – and jumps ship.

Symmetries

The Patagonia sails from Boston at the start of the story and arrives in Liverpool at the end – which neatly ties together the New World with the Old (America and Europe) which James was so fond of exploring in his tales and novels.

The Patagonia – study resources

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

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

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

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

The Patagonia – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Patagonia – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

Tales of Henry James – Norton Critical Editions

The Patagonia – Kindle annotated eBook edition

The Patagonia – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Patagonia – plot summary

Part I. An unnamed middle-aged narrator calls on his friend Mrs Nettlepoint the day before they are due to sail from Boston to Liverpool on The Patagonia. Her son Jasper is not sure if he will accompany them or not. But when they are joined by the attractive Grace Mavis, who will also be on the voyage, Jasper suddenly decides to go with them. Grace, who is thirty, has been engaged for ten years to David Porterfield, a student of architecture in Paris, and she is going there to marry him – apparently with little enthusiasm.

Part II. On board, Jasper is very attentive to Grace, so much so that passengers begin to gossip about them. Mrs Nettlepoint even suspects that Grace might have designs on her son. All available evidence suggests that some sort of romantic relationship is developing between the two of them. The narrator and Mrs Nettlepoint are alarmed at this development. She feels maternally protective towards her son, and the narrator thinks that Grace’s reputation is being compromised. They feel that they should warn and reprimand the two younger characters.

Part III. Mrs Nettlepoint challenges Grace, who defends herself by saying that she is doing nothing wrong. When the narrator points out to Jasper that his behaviour is putting Grace in a socially invidious position, he is told virtually to mind his own business.

Part IV. Gossip about the affair continues, Jasper’s and Grace’s behaviour becomes erratic, but there is no resolution, until finally Grace jumps overboard in the middle of the night. The narrator is then faced with the difficulty of breaking the news to her fiancé who meets the ship as it docks at Liverpool.

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

Principal characters

I	an unnamed middle-aged narrator
Mrs Nettlepoint	an upper-class Bostonian lady – friend of the narrator
Jasper Nettlepoint	her handsome and well-travelled son
Mrs Allen	friend of Mrs Nettlepoint who ‘recommends’ Mrs Mavis
Mrs Mavis	middle-class lady from less prosperous part of Boston
Mr Mavis	an invalid who has lost his job
Grace Mavis	their spirited thirty year old daughter
David Porterfield	a student of architecture living in Paris
Mrs Peck	a passenger and neighbour of the Mavis family

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Abasement of the Northmores – commentary

The Abasement of the Northmores – study resources

The Abasement of the Northmores – plot summary

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

The Age of Innocence – plot summary

The Age of Innocence – study resources

Principal characters

The Age of Innocence – Video

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Beast in the Jungle – critical commentary

The Beast in the Jungle – study resources

The Beast in the Jungle – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Bench of Desolation – critical commentary

The Bench of Desolation – study resources

The Bench of Desolation – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Bostonians – critical commentary

The Bostonians – study resources

The Bostonians – plot summary

The Bostonians – principal characters

The Bostonians – film adaptation

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Custom of the Country – critical commentary

The Custom of the Country – study resources

The Custom of the Country – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, further reading

The House of Mirth – plot summary

The House of Mirth – study resources

The House of Mirth – characters

The House of Mirth – film adaptation

Manuscript page from The House of Mirth

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – 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

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Patagonia – critical commentary

The Patagonia – study resources

The Patagonia – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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