Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

>> Home / Archives for Henry James

Georgina’s Reasons

by

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

Georgina’s Reasons first appeared in serial form in the New York newspaper The Sun for July—August 1884. This was a serious newspaper which ranked alongside the more famous broadsheets The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. The story was then reprinted in book form amongst Stories Revived published in England and America in 1885.

Georgina's Reasons

Georgina’s Reasons – critical commentary

There only seem to be three points to be made about this tale. The first is obvious and explicit; the second less so; and the third only emerges in the light of reading James’s other stories with a similar theme.

The first is that whatever Georgina’s reasons are, she keeps them to herself. Obviously she is wilful and defiant towards her parents. She disobeys them and thwarts their ambitions. But she gains nothing from marrying Raymond in secret then going back to live at home. She has not gained any independence.

Obviously she deceives Raymond, mistreats him, and behaves even more outrageously towards her own child. Then – although we are not shown how she does it – she claws her way into higher society via a bigamous marriage to Mr Roy.

In other words she is a completely unscrupulous status seeker with no moral framework other than rampant self-interest and a total disregard for the feelings of others. She is like the precursor of an ambitious bitch from some television soap opera.

In contrast (the second point) Raymond Benyon appears to be the model of high-principled moral integrity. He agrees to keep their marriage secret, despite having no earthly motive for doing so. And he sticks to this absurd agreement even when attractive alternatives are on offer.

But is he so honourable? He realises that because he is technically married, he ought not to become entangled with unmarried women, but he does so nevertheless. So far, so understandable. But then he cannot bring himself to explain to Kate Theory why he is so reluctant to develop their relationship – and at the end of the tale he makes quite a cruel suggestion that they ‘wait’ before marrying – at the same time as applying for another commission at sea.

His excuse to himself is that the ‘wait’ is only until the death of his wife, to whom he is still legally married. But she is only thirty years old at the time. He is prevaricating wimpishly at the expense of Kate’s feelings for him.

If these two observations are put together, they form the basis for the third point of argument – that this story is yet another of the many James wrote which offer a cautionary tale against emotional entanglements with women, and the perilous consequences of being married. Read alongside other tales such as Benvolio, , and The Path of Duty there is every reason to believe that James was giving expression (whether consciously or unconsciously) to the dilemma he faced in his own relations with women, marriage, and sexuality. He would not resolve this dilemma until quite late in his own life.

Geotgina’s Reasons – study resources

Georgina's Reasons The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Georgina's Reasons The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Georgina's Reasons Complete Stories 1884—1891 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Georgina's Reasons Complete Stories 1884—1891 – Library of America – Amazon US

Georgina's Reasons Georgina’s Reasons – paperback edition – Amazon UK

Georgina's Reasons Georgina’s Reasons – paperback edition [$5.84] Amazon US

Georgina's Reasons Georgina’s Reasons – Kindle edition

Georgina's Reasons Georgina’s Reasons – eBook formats at Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

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

Georgina's Reasons

Georgina’s Reasons – plot summary

Part I.   Georgina Gressie causes distress to her successful family when she announces that she wishes to marry Raymond Benyon, a humble lieutenant in the navy. She acts in a contradictory manner with Raymond, and argues that they should see less of each other, but marry as quickly as possible. She argues for marrying in secret and continuing to live with her parents.

Part II.   Georgina announces to Mrs Portico that she has been married for a year, and wishes to go to Europe. She has pretended to her family that her relationship with Raymond Benyon is over. He is away at sea, and she is pregnant. She has sworn Raymond to permanent secrecy regarding their marriage. Mrs Portico suggests that she should tell her parents, but Georgina refuses indignantly.

Part III.   However, Mrs Portico consents to the trip and they go to Genoa, where Georgina gives birth to a son, who she immediately gives away to an Italian surrogate mother. Mrs Portico feels guilty about conspiring in this sort of conduct, and thinks of adopting the child herself. She is increasingly critical of Georgina, and secretly writes to Raymond to tell him about his son, offering to bring him up herself. However, shortly afterwards she dies of malarial fever. Georgina returns to New York.

Part IV.   Ten years later Kate Theory is looking after her consumptive sister Mildred in Naples. They have been visited by Captain Benyon, who Kate thinks has a ‘lost love’ in his past. His commodore has left him in charge of the Louisiana whilst away. They have met via the US consul, and Raymond is attracted to them, despite his self-imposed rule of staying away from unmarried women.

Mildred reveals privately to Raymond their fear that they will not like their brother’s wife Agnes, who is due to visit. Raymond also worries that Mildred seems to be pushing her sister Kate at him, because he is falling for her despite himself. He leaves abruptly, and when Kate returns she is devastated.

Part V.   Ten days later Raymond has admitted to himself that he is in love with Kate, but feels he must renounce their relationship because technically he is still married. Agnes Theory has turned out to be an empty-headed bore. Raymond half declares himself to Kate, and then is shown a portrait of Georgina, who has married a rich New York businessman. He thinks back in great anger about the manner in which Georgina has deceived him, particularly with regard to their child, for whom he has searched, fruitlessly. He now feels that Georgina has put herself within his power.

Part VI.   Back in New York, Raymond visits Georgina and finds her beautiful and completely unrepentant. He wants a divorce, but she refuses. Instead she introduces him to her husband Mr Roy. Raymond could reveal her bigamous status, but doesn’t. She sends him off with the suggestion that he should marry again without getting a divorce. He feels constrained by the promise he originally made to her, and cannot find a way out of this dilemma. Finally, he decides to renounce Kate. He tells her they must wait to get married and asks the navy for a new commission.

Principal characters
Catherine Conduit the narrator, third cousin to Eunice
Eunice a rich orphan of twenty-one
Mr Caliph Eunice’s trustee, an old family friend
Adrian Frank Mr Caliph’s step-brother
Mrs Lizzie Ermine a society busybody and bore

Georgina's Reasons - Henry James portrait

Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant

Further reading

Biographical

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other works by Henry James

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

Georgina's Reasons Buy the book at Amazon UK
Georgina's Reasons Buy the book at Amazon US

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

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

© Roy Johnson 2013

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glasses

by

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Glasses was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1896. Henry James records in his Notebooks “A little idea occurred to me the other day for a little tale that Maupassant would have called Les Lunettes though I’m afraid The Spectacles won’t do”. The story does have the sort of ironic twist that Maupassant featured in some of his own stories – of which James was a great admirer. It features the ever-present un-named first person narrator through whom the events of the story are presented.

Glasses

Glasses – critical commentary

The main theme

The principal theme of the story is signaled throughout by images of sight, seeing, looking, and appearance. The narrator’s occupation is looking at people and representing them in paintings. It is Flora Saunt’s eyes to which he is first attracted and which give him the inspiration to paint her portrait

However, we learn that these eyes are also her point of weakness, and she feels socially threatened by the prospect of wearing glasses.

Mrs Meldrum is a fairly conventional figure of fun because of the odd juxtaposition of her manner and her appearance.- ‘the heartiest, the keenest, the ugliest of women’ with ‘the tread of a grenadier and the voice of an angel’. She has

a big red face indescribably out of a drawing, from which she glared at you through gold-rimmed aids to vision, optic circles of such diameter and so frequently displaced that some one had spoken of her as flattering her nose against the glass of her spectacles.

This comic vision is rammed home countless times throughout the narrative, with her spectacles referred to variously as ‘nippers’, ‘pince nez, and ‘great goggles’.

Geoffrey Dawling on the other hand is physically unattractive: ‘a long, lean confused, confusing young man, with a bad complexion and large protrusive teeth’ – but the narrator feels that he is a gentleman because he is reassured by his ‘good green eyes’.

Dawling has fallen in love with Flora without even having met her – after seeing her portrait in the exhibition. It is significant that Flora at first rejects his attentions out of hand as unthinkable, but she later blossoms as his wife – but only when she can no longer see him.

During the course of the story people repeatedly stare at each other – through spectacles, a telescope, and opera glasses. And emotional scenes invariably bring tears to somebody’s eyes.

A secondary issue

It is interesting to note how Flora’s fate is closely tied to her physical appearance and her income. She is an orphan, living in straightened circumstances, but has one advantage – her good looks. She knows that she must use those looks to attract a husband, because she is aware that she does not have a good figure. She also realises that if she were to wear glasses, this would reduce her chances of capturing a suitable husband.

And the conventions of society on this issue support her, for when she reveals her ocular weakness (as James might put it) to her fiancé Lord Iffield, he breaks off the engagement. Two interesting developments flow from that.

An engagement at that time could not be broken off lightly, without causing damage to social ‘reputation’ – particularly that of the woman. Iffield transfers the blame for the rupture onto Flora, so that he cannot be accused of ‘breach of contract’ – but offers her money as compensation. It is not made clear if she accepts it or not.

Blemishes

Contemporary readers might find it mildly amusing that so much fuss is made about the issue of having to wear glasses – though Flora’s eyesight is very seriously affected, to the extent that she eventually becomes blind.

What they will not fail to notice however, is a sudden flash of corrosive and wholly gratuitous anti-semitism on James’s part when the narrator arrives in Folkestone to visit his mother.

The place was full of lodgings, and the lodgings were at that season full of people, people who had nothing to do but stare at one another on the great flat down. There were thousands of little chairs and almost as many little Jews; and there was music in an open rotunda, over which the little Jews wagged their big noses.

This sort of thing takes some explaining away, even with allowance made for some ‘historical context’ – the more so since it is not an isolated instance in James’s work. There are many cases of Jews making a fleeting appearance in his fiction, and almost all are cast as negative stereotypes.

Glasses – study resources

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

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

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

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

Glasses The Complete Tales (Vol 9) – Paperback edition – Amazon UK

Glasses Selected Tales – Penguin Classics edition – Amazon UK

Glasses Glasses – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

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

Glasses

Glasses – plot summary

The narrator is on holiday in Folkstone to visit his mother. In the company of a family friend Mrs Meldrum (who wears glasses) he meets Flora Saunt.

Flora is an attractive orphan eking out a small inheritance, living in the shadow of people who are taking advantage of her. She is full of self-confidence and is surrounded by admirers.

The narrator introduces his mother to Flora and proposes to paint her portrait. He asks her about a problem she is rumoured to have with her eyes. Flora protests that there is nothing whatever wrong with her. Her upper class admirers then snub the narrator’s mother.

Flora’s admirer Lord Iffield buys her portrait when it is exhibited at the Royal Academy, then Geoffrey Dawling arrives at the narrator’s studio to purchase the preliminary sketches, merely on the strength of having seen the portrait.

Dawling becomes deeply enamoured of Flora, and refuses to take the narrator’s critical advice about her. Flora accuses the narrator of trying to put pressure on her to marry Dawling.

The narrator sees Flora whilst he is out shopping, but is puzzled that she doesn’t see him. He discovers her secretly wearing glasses to inspect a toy.

The narrator discusses this revelation with Dawling, who wishes to check the source of the narrator’s suspicions – Mrs Meldrum. Dawling reports back from Folkstone that Flora has a horror of looking like Mrs Meldrum, but that he will continue to pursue her.

Flora reveals the desperation of her plight to the narrator. She feels that she must marry before revealing her eye problem – because her face is her one good feature, since she ‘no figure’. When it is announced that Flora has become engaged to Lord Iffield, Mrs Meldrum tries to protect Dawling from the shock.

Dawling goes abroad and the narrator goes to America for a year. When he returns he meets Flora in Folkstone. She is a shadow of her former self, and is living with Mrs Meldrum.

Mrs Meldrum reveals to the narrator that Flora confessed her condition to Lord Iffield, who then backed out of their engagement and offered her financial compensation. Flora is living on next to nothing but the charity of Mrs Meldrum.

The Narrator goes back to America for three years, whilst Flora and Mrs Meldrum go abroad. When the narrator returns to London he sees Flora at the opera, looking more beautiful and well off than she has ever done before.

But when he goes to join her in her theatre box he discovers that she has gone blind. She has in fact married Dawling, who continues to be devoted to her. The narrator hurries to Mrs Meldrum for a full account of events, but she doesn’t want to discuss the matter.

Principal characters
I the un-named narrator, a portrait painter
— his invalid mother in Folkestone
Mrs Meldrum his mother’s friend
Flora Louisa Saunt an orphan, with a beautiful face but ‘no figure’
Bertie Hammond Synge one of Flora’s admirers
Lord Iffield an admirer of Flora’s who becomes engaged to her
Lord Considine another admirer of Flora’s
Geoffrey Dawling an awkward but decent Oxbridge admirer of Flora’s

Henry James's study

Henry James’s study

Further reading

Biographical

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other works by Henry James

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

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon US

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

© Roy Johnson 2012

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greville Fane

by

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Greville Fane first appeared in the Illustrated London News in two weekly parts during September 1892. At this period in his career Henry James had decided to limit himself the short stories (or ‘tales’ as he called them) whilst he was concentrating on what was to be his disastrous attempt to succeed in the theatre. His dramatisation of The American was touring England at the time, and he had other dramas circulating amongst theatre managers for their consideration.

In keeping with his habitual industry, he produced something like a tale per month over a period of two years. Literary productivity is one of the features of this light but touching story.

Greville Fane

Greville Fane – critical comment

Greville Fane is a jeu d’esprit in a light mood – not unlike the other stories of literary life James produced during the 1890s – such as The Coxon Fund, The Figure in the Carpet, and The Abasement of the Northmores.

James strikes a delicate balance between comedy and pathos in his depiction of Mrs Stormer – just as his anonymous narrator is required to do for the obituary that is commissioned from him. Mrs Stormer (Greville Fane) is a literary hack completely without talent:

She could invent stories by the yard, but she couldn’t write a page of English. She went down to her grave without suspecting that though she had contributed volumes to the diversion of her contemporaries she had not contributed a sentence to the language.

Yet she is remarkably industrious, and as we gradually learn how badly she is treated by her own two children, we are invited to feel a sympathy for her comparable to that felt by the narrator. She keeps her son in complete idleness, and works for a year to produce the three novels that will pay for her daughter’s wedding – all the time being paid less and less for what she writes. James knew very well the values and the payments of the literary marketplace.

The story originated in an anecdote about the novelist Anthony Trollope who was famed for his prodigious industry as a novelist (whilst also holding down a full time position at the Post Office). Trollope trained his younger son Frederic to become a novelist, but the son chose instead to be a sheep farmer in Australia – and failed in business.

Greville Fane – study resources

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

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

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

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

Greville Fane The Complete Tales of Henry James – Volume 8 – Digireads reprint UK

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Greville Fane Greville Fane – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Greville Fane

Greville Fane – plot summary

An un-named writer is asked to produce a ‘tactful’ obituary of a lady writer, Mrs Stormer, who produced three books a year under the pen name Greville Fane. He reveals that she was commercially successful, but without any real talent. She also had ambitions to train her son Leolin to become a writer, and spoils him in the attempt. In fact both her children feel embarrassed by their mother’s lack of good taste.

She pours money and effort into Leolin on the basis that he must have full experience of life in order to convert it into the substance of fiction. He takes advantage of his mother’s indulgence, becomes extravagantly well dressed, and produces nothing.

When her daughter marries the bland nonentity Sir Basil Luard, Mrs Stormer works for a year to pay for the wedding, all the time accepting ever less in payment for her work. Her daughter then keeps her at arm’s length because she looks down on her lack of social connections.

Since Leolin Stormer fails to deliver, his mother starts to pay him for ideas and characters that she can transform into fiction herself. But eventually she dies, and Leolin marries an older woman for her money.

Principal characters
I the anonymous narrator
Mrs Stormer a mediocre but successful lady novelist (Greville Fane)
Leolin Stormer her talentless and idle son
Lady Ethel Luard her snobbish and selfish daughter
Sir Baldwin Luard Ethel’s husband, a vacuous mediocrity

Henry James's study

Henry James’s study

Further reading

Biographical

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other works by Henry James

Henry James Washington SquareWashington 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.
Henry James Washington Square Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James Washington Square Buy the book from Amazon US

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

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2012

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest’s Confession

by

tutorial, commentary, web links, and study resources

Guest’s Confession first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for October—November 1872. It was reprinted years later as part of Travelling Companions published after James’s death in 1919.

Guest's Confession

Guest’s Confession – plot summary

Part I.   The narrator David is waiting for his elder step-brother to arrive during the summer holidays in a small town. David’s account of his brother emphasises the differences and rivalry between them. Walking in the countryside, he enters a small church during a rainstorm to find that the organ is being played by a young woman. He sings along to her playing, and they exchange pleasantries.

When the rain stops he goes to meet Edgar, his step-brother, reflecting critically on his egoism. When he arrives, Edgar is full of neurotic self-concern, and he reveals that he has been swindled out of twenty thousand dollars by a man called John Guest.

Part II.   Shortly afterwards they walk out in the village and encounter John Guest in the company of a coquettish woman Mrs Clara Beck. Edgar immediately wishes to challenge Guest, but David sees positive qualities in the handsome and debonair figure. Edgar has appointed solicitors. Guest pleads for ‘understanding’ and restraint.

The two men argue their cases. Guest accuses Edgar of being insane. David suggests that as a compromise, Guest should write out an apology. .Edgar demands that Guest kneel before him and beg for forgiveness. In addition to his demand for the money, he then dictates a confession which he forces Guest to sign. When Guest’s daughter Laura arrives to collect him, she turns out to be the same woman David met in the church.

Part III.   David feels disconcerted by his divided loyalties and by his part in the scene of humiliation. He meets Laura again in the village, along with her chaperone Mrs Beck. He spends more and more time with them whilst Guest is back in New York, and he feels increasingly frustrated by Mrs Beck’s constant presence.

Mr Crawford arrives claiming cousinship with Mrs Beck, and David sees that he is paying court to her. The two men compare their respective ‘intentions’ and ‘claims’ regarding the two women.

Part IV.   David wishes to pursue his interest in Laura but worries about what she will think if she learns of the part he played in her father’s shame. She however does not take him very seriously and thinks he is spoiled, idle, and too rich. She reveals that he reminds her of her father – because they are both honest and youthful-looking.

David teases Mrs Beck about her choice of Guest or Crawford as the object of her affections. Guest writes from New York to his daughter Laura, telling her he has had to sell their house. David suggests that this would be a good opportunity to go to live in Italy. He plays the organ in the church for her, then declares his love for her and offers her money to help her father. She refuses both offers.

Part V.   Edgar is still ill in bed when he receives news that Guest has repaid his debt, but Edgar refuses to return the signed ‘confession’. Guest returns from New York, and Mrs Beck switches her attentions to him, away from Crawford. David makes an appeal to Laura before her father can reveal what he knows about him to her. But when Guest confronts them both he excoriates David completely, and will accept no apology or compromise. David asks Laura to be patient, and meanwhile attends Edgar, who is dying. Edgar leaves David nothing in his will, but puts aside twenty thousand dollars to found a hospice. However, David inherits the confession as part of Edgar’s effects. He tries to re-negotiate with Guest, but they quarrel again.

Part VI.   Having heard of Guest’s money problems, Mrs Beck switches her attentions back to Crawford. David refuses to return the confession when Guest asks for it. When he next meets Guest he presents him with an ultimatum: remove the objection to his marrying Laura, or he will show her the confession. But following a bucolic epiphany, David returns to a completely distraught Guest and burns the confession in front of him. He then feels free to ‘claim’ Laura.

Guest’s Confession – principal characters
David the rich, vain, and self-regarding narrator
Edgard Musgrave his invalid, older, clever step-brother
John Guest a handsome swindler who has been ill
Laura Guest his daughter
Mrs Clara Beck a childish and coquettish chaperone of thirty-six
Mr Crawford the owner of a silver mine in Arizona
Study resources

Guest's Confession The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Guest's Confession The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Guest's Confession Complete Stories 1864—1874 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Guest's Confession Complete Stories 1864—1874 – Library of America – Amazon US

Guest's Confession Guest’s Confession – eBook formats at Gutenberg

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Red button Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

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

Guest's Confession

Guest’s Confession – further reading

Biographical

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other works by Henry James

Henry James Washington SquareWashington 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.
Henry James Washington Square Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James Washington Square Buy the book from Amazon US

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

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon UK
Henry James The Spoils of Poynton Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2013

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry James – biography

by

chronology and works of  The Master

Henry James - portrait by J.S. Sargeant
1843. Henry James was born on 15 April at Washington Place, New York City. His grandfather was one of the first American millionaires. Father a theologian and philosopher. James’s brother William became psychologist and author of Varieties of Religious Experience.

1845-55. Childhood in Albany (State capital) and New York City, plus travelling in Europe.

1855-58. Attends schools in Geneva, London, and Paris, and is privately tutored.

1858. Family settles in Newport, Rhode Island.

1859. At scientific school in Geneva. Studies German in Bonn.

1861. American civil war begins – James develops a bad back. Studies art briefly.

1862-63. Spends a year studying Law at Harvard.

1864. Family settles in Boston, then Cambridge. James starts writing – and publishing – short stories and reviews.

1865. His first story in Atlantic Monthly – prestigious journal which went on to publish more of his work.

1869-70. Travels in England, France, and Italy. Death of his beloved cousin, Minny Temple.

1870. Back in Cambridge (MA). Published first novel, Watch and Ward.

1872-74. Travels with his sister Alice and aunt in Europe – greater part in Paris and Rome. Begins Roderick Hudson.

1874-75. Returns to New York City, writing literary journalism for the Nation. Three books published – Transatlantic Sketches, A Passionate Pilgrim, and Roderick Hudson.

Henry James's study

Henry James’s study

1875-76. Spends a year in Paris – friendships with Flaubert, Turgenev, Zola, Daudet, and Edmund de Goncourt. Writes The American.

1876-77. Settles in London at Bolton Street, Picadilly. Visits Paris, Florence, and Rome.

1878. His story ‘Daisy Miller’ establishes his fame on both sides of the Atlantic. Writes critical essays French Poets and Novelists.

1879-82. Writes the great novels of his ‘early’ to ‘middle’ periods – The Europeans, Washington Square, Confidence, The Portrait of a Lady.

1882-83. Revisits America – the death of his parents.

1884-86. Resumes residence in London. His sister Alice comes to live near him. Publishes fourteen-volume collection of his novels and tales.

1886. Takes flat in De Vere Gardens. Publishes The Bostonians and The Princess Cassamassima.

1887. Long stay in Italy, mainly in Florence and Venice. ‘The Aspern Papers’, The Reverberator, ‘A London Life’. Friendship with Constance Fenimore Woolson (grand-niece of Fenimore Cooper) but remains a bachelor.

1888. Partial Portraits and various volumes of tales

1889. James begins to take an interest in the theatre – publishes The Tragic Muse.

1890-01. ‘The Dramatic Years’ James seeks to gain a reputation in the theatre. Dramatises The American, which has a short run. Writes four comedies, which are rejected by producers.

1892. Death of sister Alice James.

1894. Miss Woolson commits suicide in Venice. James journeys to Italy and visits her grave in Rome (c.f. – ‘The Beast in the Jungle’).

1895. His play Guy Domville is booed off stage on first night. James deeply depressed, abandons writing for the theatre and returns to novels.

1897. Settles at Lamb House in Rye, Sussex. Friendly with Joseph Conrad. Writes ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and What Masie Knew.

1899-1900. ‘The Late Period’. Begins composing by dictation. The Awkward Age, The Sacred Fount.

1902-1904. Writes The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl.

1905. Revisits United States after an absence of twenty-five years. Lectures on Balzac.

1906-10. The American Scene. Edits the twenty-four volume ‘New York Edition’ of his selected works and writes the prefaces which give an account of the genesis of the stories.

1910. Death of brother William James.

1913. Writes the autobiographical accounts A Small Boy and Others, and Notes of a Son and Brother.

1914. Notes on Novelists. Begins war work, visiting wounded in hospitals.

1915. Becomes a British subject.

1916. Given Order of Merit. Falls in love with a Swedish sailor, and dies thinking he is Napoleon. Ashes buried in Cambridge (MA).

1976. Commemorative tablet unveiled in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

The Cambridge Companion to Henry JamesThe Cambridge Companion to Henry James is intended to provide a critical introduction to James’ work. Throughout the major critical shifts of the past fifty years, and despite suspicions of the traditional high literary culture that was James’ milieu, as a writer he has retained a powerful hold on readers and critics alike. All essays are written at a level free from technical jargon, designed to promote accessibility to the study of James and his work.

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© Roy Johnson 2009

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

Henry James – web links

by

a selection of web-based archives and resources

This short selection of Henry James web links offers quick connections to resources for further study. It’s not comprehensive, and if you have any ideas for additional resources, please use the ‘Comments’ box below to make suggestions.

Henry James - portrait by J.S. Sargeant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cambridge Companion to Henry JamesThe Cambridge Companion to Henry James is intended to provide a critical introduction to James’ work. Throughout the major critical shifts of the past fifty years, and despite suspicions of the traditional high literary culture that was James’ milieu, as a writer he has retained a powerful hold on readers and critics alike. All essays are written at a level free from technical jargon, designed to promote accessibility to the study of James and his work.
Henry James Buy the book here

© Roy Johnson 2010

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

Henry James and Cinema

by

film adaptations of Henry James’s novels and stories

Following the popularity of his novels and stories in England and America, Henry James spent almost a decade trying to reproduce that success in dramatic form. He adapted novels for the theatre (The American) and wrote a number of original plays – none of which were commercially successful. Indeed a work into which he poured all his hopes (Guy Domville) resulted in his being booed off stage on its first night. It is therefore not without a certain historical and cultural irony that his stories and novels should have become so fruitful a source of dramatic content with the coming of the cinema and television.

The examples shown here range from his earliest, lighter novels (somewhat in the tradition of Jane Austen) to the later and much darker works. All of them translate well into what are generally classed as ‘costume dramas’, and the greatest deal with issues of profound moral complexity, which are well realised by some of the cinema’s greatest actors.

The Europeans (novel 1878 – film 1979)

– video clip currently unavailable –

This is a very early novel by James which explores one of his favourite themes – the interaction of European and American cultures. In the autumn of 1850, the puritanical Mr. Wentworth receives two slightly bohemian visitors from Europe, Eugenia and Felix. One of Wentworth’s two daughters is instantly delighted by the pleasure and amusement Felix offers. A wealthy neighbour, Mr. Acton, is attracted to Eugenia, who is going through a divorce with a European aristocrat. There is a chance that the Americans are being used by the penniless Europeans – but the outcomes are evenly divided.

Directed by James Ivory. Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Starring – Lee Remick (Baroness Eugenia Munster), Robin Ellis (Robert Acton), Wesley Addy (Mr Wentworth), Tim Choate (Clifford Wentworth), Lisa Eichhorn (Gertrude). Filmed in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, USA.

Henry James and Cinema The Europeans – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Europeans – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Europeans – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Europeans – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Ghostly Rental (story 1876 – film 1999)

James’s original story is not much more than a folk tale with a mild ghostly element – the most notable element of which is that it features someone who impersonates a ghost. In this updating and radical transformation a mysterious, morbid professor who has suffered a number of horrid events in his life tries to help a young troubled man, whose girl friend was killed during an illegal abortion. Produced by the master of horror movies, Roger Corman.

Filmed as The Haunting of Hell House Directed by Mitch Marcus. Produced by Roger Corman. Screenplay by Marcus and Lev L. Spiro. Starring Michael York (Professor Ambrose), Andrew Bowen (James Farrow), Claudia Christian (Lucy), Aideen O’Donnell (Sarah).

Henry James and Cinema The Haunting of Hell House – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Ghostly Rental – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon US

Daisy Miller (novella 1878 – film 1974)

Daisy Miller is one of Henry James’s most famous stories. On the surface it’s a simple enough tale of a spirited young American girl visiting Europe. Her behaviour doesn’t sit easily with the conservative manners of the time. She pushes the boundaries of acceptable behaviour to the limit, and ultimately the consequences are tragic. Peter Bogdanovich puts lots of colour and light into his adaptation, which features Cybil Shepherd, who was his lover at the time and at the height of her fame, having just been the star of his earlier movie The Last Picture Show.

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Screenplay by Frederick Rafael. Starring – Cybil Shepherd (Daisy Miller), Harry Brown (Frederick Winterbourne), Cloris Leachman (Mrs Ezra Miller), Mildred Natwick (Mrs Costello), Eileen Brennan (Mrs Walker). Filmed in Rome and Lazio, Italy, and Vevy, Switzerland.

Henry James and Cinema Daisy Miller – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema Daisy Miller – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema Daisy Miller – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Daisy Miller – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

Washington Square (novel 1880 – film 1949)

This is a simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. She has a handsome young suitor – but her father disapproves, believing him to be a fortune hunter. There is a battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant town house. Who wins in the end? You will be surprised by the outcome. The plot of the novel is based upon a true story told to Henry James by the British actress Fanny Kemble.

Filmed as The Heiress (1949). Directed by William Wyler. Screenplay by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. Starring – Olivia de Haviland (Catherine Sloper), Montgomery Clift (Morris Townsend), Ralph Richardson (Doctor Austin Sloper), Miriam Hopkins (Aunt Lavinia Penniman). Aaron Copland is credited with having composed the theme music, but he denied it.

Henry James and Cinema The Heiress – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema Washington Square – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema Washington Square – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Washington Square – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Portrait of a Lady (novel 1880 – film 1996)

A young American woman is invited to live in Europe and discover her full potential. She is immediately the subject of romantic interest by three rich and eligible bachelors. But when she unexpectedly inherits a fortune she chooses a man with no money who devotes himself to aesthetic matters. Slowly she realises that he has a guilty secret and is turning her life into a nightmare. Jane Campion (The Piano) creates a visually spectacular adaptation, and John Malkovich turns in one of his masterful performances as the sadistic husband.

Directed by Jane Campion, Screenplay by Campion and Laura Jones. Starring – Nicole Kidman (Isabel Archer), John Malkovich (Gilbert Osmond), Barbara Hershey (Madame Serena Merle), Mary-Louise Parker (Henrietta Stackpole), Martin Donovan (Ralph Touchett), John Gielgud (Mr Touchett), Shelly Winters (Mrs Touchett), Richard E. Grant (Lord Warburton). Filmed in England and in Florence, Lucca and Rome, Italy.

Henry James and Cinema The Portrait of a Lady – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Portrait of a Lady – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Portrait of a Lady – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Portrait of a Lady – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Bostonians (novel 1885 – film 1984)

A Boston female rights campaigner and a conservative Southern lawyer contend for the heart and mind of a beautiful and bright girl unsure of her future. The principal subject matter of the story 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. It also touches on the psychologically ambiguous issue of ‘The Boston Marriage’ – two independent women living together.

Directed by James Ivory. Produced by Ismail Merchant. Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Starring – Vanessa Redgrave (Olive Chancellor), Christopher Reeve (Basil Ransome), Madaleine Potter (Verena Tarrant), Jessica Tandy (Miss Birdseye), Wesley Addy (Dr Tarrant). Filmed in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA.

Henry James and Cinema The Bostonians – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Bostonians – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Bostonians – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Bostonians – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Altar of the Dead (story 1885 – film 1978)

This is an interesting experiment that compresses and updates three Henry James stories into one. The story is set in a small French town after the end of the first world war. Julien Davenne is a journalist whose wife Julie died a decade ago. He gathers a collection of her memorabilia into a green room. When a fire destroys the room, he renovates a little chapel and devotes it to Julie and other dead friends. A late work from avant-guard director Francois Truffaut (with sub-titles). It is based on – The Altar of the Dead, The Beast in the Jungle and The Way It Came.

La Chambre Verte (The Green Room) Directed by Francois Truffaut. Produced by Truffaut and Marcel Berbert. Screenplay by Truffaut and Jean Gruault. Starring – Francois Truffaut (Julien Navenne), Nathalie Baye (Cecile Mandel), Jean Daste (Bernard Humbert). Filmed in Calvados, France.

Henry James and Cinema The Green Room – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Altar of the Dead – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon US

The Aspern Papers (novella 1888 – film 1947)

A rich literary bachelor in pursuit of a famous poet’s love letters comes up against the elderly woman to whom they were once addressed. She still has the letters in her possession, but she also has no money and a daughter for whom she wishes to find a husband. A battle of wills ensues, set in her crumbling Venetian palace. The elderly woman dies without making a will, so the bachelor is faced with a moral dilemma – and he hesitates dangerously.

Filmed as The Lost Moment Directed by Martin Gabel. Produced by Walter Wanger. Screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici. Starring – Robert Cummings (Lewis Venable), Susan Heyward (Tina Bordereau), Agnes Moorhead (Juliana Bordereau). [Please excuse the dubbed voiceover.]

Henry James and Cinema The Aspern Papers – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Aspern Papers – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Aspern Papers – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Aspern Papers – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Pupil (story 1891 – film 1996)

A young university graduate is hired by a rich family to act as private tutor to their precocious son. He develops a close relationship with the boy, and he also realises that the parents neglect their son and don’t pay their debts. When a financial crash looms, the family try to pressure the tutor into taking the boy into his own care. The tutor hesitates, and the delay proves fatal.

This is a Polish adaptation, filmed as L’éleve. Directed by Oliver Schatzky. Screeplay by Schatzky and Eve Deboise. Starring – Vincent Cassel (Julien), Caspar Salmon (Morgan), Caroline Cellier (Emma), Jean-Pierre Marielle (Armand). Filmed in Krakow, Poland.

Henry James and Cinema L’éleve – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Pupil – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle eBook – Amazon US

What Masie Knew (novel 1897 – film 2012)

This adaptation transfers the events of the novel from nineteenth century London to New York in the twenty-first century. When a young couple are enmeshed in a messy divorce and custody battle, they neglect the welfare of their daughter, who comes under the protection of an old friend of the family.

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. Screenplay by Nancy Doyne and Caroll Cartwright. Starring – Julianne Moore (Susanna), Alexander Skarsgard (Lincoln), Onata Aprile (Masie), Joanna Vanderham (Marge), Steve Coogan (Beale). Filmed in New York City, USA.

Henry James and Cinema What Masie Knew – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema What Masie Knew – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema What Masie Knew – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema What Masie Knew – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Turn of the Screw (novella 1898 – film 1961)

A young governess is employed to look after two children in a remote country house. She becomes convinced that her young charges are possessed by the ghosts of two former servants. The whole house seems charged with a malevolent and vaguely erotic menace, and the governess has nobody to turn to for help. The outcome is truly horrible.

This amazingly complex ghost story has been adapted several times for the cinema. The best version is by British director Jack Clayton and filmed as The Innocents. There is also a Spanish version filmed as Presence of Mind and a prequel directed by Michael Winner called The Nightcomers starring Marlon Brando.

Directed by Jack Clayton. Screenplay by John Mortimer and Truman Capote. Starring – Deborah Kerr (The Governess), Peter Wyngarde (Peter Quint), Meg Jenkins (Mrs Grosse), Michael Redgrave (The Uncle), Martin Stephens (Miles), Pamela Franklin (Flora). Filmed in East Sussex and Shepperton Studios, Surrey, UK.

Henry James and Cinema The Innocents – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Turn of the Screw – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Turn of the Screw – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Turn of the Screw – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Wings of the Dove (novel 1902 – film 1997)

An impoverished woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover, befriends an American heiress. When she discovers the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the privileged life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without.

This is a lush and beautiful film version of the novel from director Iain Softley. His London scenes are successful, but the film really comes alive visually in Venice. Even the costumes were nominated for an Academy award in this outstanding production which captures faithfully the spirit of the original novel.

Directed by Ian Softley. Screenplay by Hossein Amini. Starring – Helena Bonham Carter (Kate Croy), Linus Roache (Densher Merton), Charlotte Rampling (Aunt Maude), Michael Gambon (Mr Croy), Alison Elliott (Milly Theale). Filmed in Venice, Italy and London, UK.

Henry James and Cinema The Wings of the Dove – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Red button Details of the film – Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Wings of the Dove – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Wings of the Dove – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Wings of the Dove – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Golden Bowl (book 1904 – film 2000)

The story concerns an extravagantly rich American widower and his sheltered daughter, both of whom marry, only to discover that their respective mates, a beautiful American expatriate and an impoverished Italian aristocrat, are entangled with one another in a romantic intrigue of seduction and deceit.

Merchant-Ivory pull out all the stops in their repertoire for creating lush period detail. Costumes, furniture, jewellery, and art objects all help to recreate a convincing fin de siècle atmosphere. The inclusion of original film footage from early last century adds tremendously to the period flavour.

Directed by James Ivory. Produced by Ismail Merchant. Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Starring – Kate Beckinsale (Maggie Verver), James Fox (Colonel Assingham), Anjelica Huston (Fanny Assingham), Nick Nolte (Adam Verver), Jeremy Northam (Prince Amerigo), Uma Thurman (Charlotte Stant). Filmed in Rome, Italy, and London and Lincolnshire, UK.

Henry James and Cinema The Golden Bowl – film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema Details of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Henry James and Cinema The Golden Bowl – a tutorial and study guide

Henry James and Cinema The Golden Bowl – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Henry James and Cinema The Golden Bowl – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2016

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

Henry James criticism

by

annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

Henry James criticism is a bibliography of critical comment on Henry James and his works, with details of each publication and a brief description of its contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in three sections – Biography, Sexuality and Gender, and General criticism.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a brand new copy of Harry T. Moore’s excellent illustrated biography of Henry James in the Thames and Hudson ‘Literary Lives’ series for one penny.

Henry James criticism

Biography

Henry James at Work – Theodora Bosanquet, University of Michigan Press, 2007. A memoir of James’s working methods written by his former secretary.

Henry James: Autobiography – F.W. Dupee (ed), Princeton University Press, 1983. Three autobiographical volumes in one.

Henry James: A Life – Leon Edel, HarperCollins, 1985. This is now regarded as the definitive biography.

Henry James: A Life in Letters – Philip Horne (ed), Penguin Classics, 2001. An edited selection from James’s voluminous correspondence.

Henry James: The Imagination of Genius – Fred Kaplan, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. An alternative biography of James.

The Notebooks of Henry James – Oxford University Press, 1988. A glimpse into prliminary ideas, notes, and plans for the novels and shorter fiction.

Henry James – Harry T. Moore, Thames and Hudson, 1999. An illustrated biography and introduction to his work.

Sexuality and Gender

Henry James and Sexuality – Hugh Stevens, Cambridge University Press, 2008. A critical study in sexuality and gender.

Henry James’s Thwarted Love – Wendy Graham, Stanford University Press, 2000. Mental hygiene, sexology, psychiatry, and cultural anthropology.

A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James – Elizabeth Allen, London: Macmillan Press, 1983. A study of female portrayal and characterisation in the novels.

Henry James, Women and Realism – Victoria Coulson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. The importance of women in James’s life and work.

Henry James: His Women and His Art – Lyndall Gordon, London: Virago Press, 2012. The role of significant women in James’s life and work.

Henry James and the Imagination of Pleasure – Tessa Hadley, Cambridge University Press, 2009. A study of the liberating power of sexuality in the later novels.

Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James – Donatella Izzo, University of Nebraska Press, 2002. A study of the cultural representation of femininity in James’s short fiction

General criticism

Henry James: A collection of critical essays – Leon Edel (ed), Prentice Hall, 1963. A selection of ‘modern’ critical studies.

Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and his Literary Circle – Miranda Seymour, Orion Hardbacks, 1988. James’s circle of writers in his later years.

A Companion to Henry James – Greg W. Zacharias, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. A collection of critical essays and studies

Henry James and the Past: Readings into Time – Ian F.A. Bell, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991. James, consumerism and the new marketplace.

Meaning in Henry James – Millicent Bell, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993. Ambiguity and interpretation in the major works.

Henry James (Modern Critical Views) – Harold Bloom (ed), Chelsea House Publishers, 1991. A collection of major critical essays.

Henry James’s Narrative Technique – Kirstin Boudreau, London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010. A study of consciousness in the author and his characters.

A Companion to Henry James Studies – Daniel Mark Fogel, Greenwood Press, 1993. Twenty original essays divided into sections on Criticism and Theory, Fiction, and Non-fiction.

Henry James’ American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas – Virginia C. Fowler, Madison (Wis): University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. The psychology, literary function, and cultural roots of the new American girl.

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Jonathan Freedman, Cambridge University Press, 1998. A collection of essays providing a critical introduction to James’s work.

Henry James: The Critical Heritage – Roger Gard (ed), London: Routledge, 2013. – A selection of critical essays first published in 1968.

Henry James: The Later Writing – Barbara Hardy, Northcote House Publishers, 1996. Close readings of the late novels, autobiography, travel writings, and criticism.

Henry James: A study of the short fiction – Richard A. Hocks, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990. Close readings and critical analyses of the major short fictions.

Henry James Against the Aesthetic Movement – David Garret Izzo, McFarlane & Co Inc, 2006. Eleven essays on the middle and late fiction.

Transforming Henry James – Anna De Biasio (ed), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. New critical perspectives on issues of gender and sexuality, economics, friendship and hospitality, and visual culture.

Henry James and the Language of Experience – Colin Meissner, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Literary theory and close readings of James’s work argue for a redefinition of the aesthetic.

The Prefaces of Henry James – John Pearson (ed), Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. James’s accounts of how his major works came to be created – written in 1912.

The Comic Sense of Henry James – Richard Poirer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. A critical study of the early novels.

Henry James and the Philosophical Novel – Merle A. Williams, Cambridge University Press, 2009. The similarities between James’s later works and the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty; and the deconstructive strategies of Jacques Derrida.

Henry James: The Major Novels – Judith Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 1991. An introduction to the major novels for the non-specialist reader.

Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Ruth Yeazell (ed), London: Longmans, 1994. A collection of stimulating critical writing plus an introduction to the author’s life and work, a chronology of important dates, and a selected bibliography.

© Roy Johnson 2015

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

Henry James greatest works

by

the great novels, stories, and novellas

Henry James greatest works
Henry James writes in an elegant, leisurely style and he deals in the finer subtleties of moral life and human consciousness. He wrote relentlessly, copiously, and almost all of his work is first rate. His stories and novellas are just as good as his better-known novels; and he was also a major theorist of the novel and a perceptive critic. In his later work he begins to explore the interesting possibilities of ‘unreliable narrators’ – that is, people telling stories who may not know or reveal the whole truth.

It is interesting to note that for all James’ interest in the psychology of his characters and his avoidance of overt action as the mainsprings to his plots, many of his novels have been very successfully translated to the cinema screen. And more ironically still, for all the dramatic tensions which exist between his characters, his own attempts to write plays were regarded as a complete failure – by himself as well as by his critics.

If you have not read James before, you should begin with something shorter and written early in his career. His later prose style became increasingly mannered and baroque, as he explored the subtleties and moral complexities of social life in ever-increasing detail. Like fine wines, James is an acquired taste.

Henry James Washington SquareWashington Square (1880) is a superb early short novel – the tale of a young girl whose future happiness is being controlled by her strictly authoritarian (but very witty) father. She has a handsome young suitor – but her father disapproves of him, seeing him as an opportunist and a fortune hunter. There is a subtle battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant New York town house. Who wins out in the end? You will be surprised by the outcome. This is a masterpiece of social commentary, with a sensitive picture of a woman’s life. A good place to start if you have not read Henry James before.
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

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

 

Henry James The Spoils of PoyntonThe Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Henry James Daisy MillerDaisy Miller (1879) is a key story from James’s early phase in which a spirited young American woman travels to Europe with her wealthy but commonplace mother. Daisy’s innocence and her audacity challenge social conventions, and she seems to be compromising her reputation. 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.
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
henry james greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Henry James The BostoniansThe Bostonians (1886) is a novel about the early feminist movement. The heroine Verena Tarrant is an ‘inspirational speaker’ who is taken under the wing of Olive Chancellor, a man-hating suffragette. Trying to pull her in the opposite direction is Basil Ransom, a vigorous young man to whom Verena becomes 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.
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

The Oxford World Classics are the best editions of James’s work. They are largely based on the most accurate versions of the texts; and they feature introductory essays, a biography, explanatory notes, textual variants, a bibliography of further reading, and in some cases missing or deleted chapters. They are also terrifically good value.

Henry James What Maisie KnewWhat Maisie Knew (1897) A vulnerable 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 you need to be prepared for longer and longer sentences. In fact it’s said that whilst composing this novel, James switched from writing longhand to using dictation – and it shows if you look carefully enough – part way through the book.
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

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

 

Henry James The Golden BowlThe Golden Bowl (1904) is the climax of James’ late period. The writing is mannered, baroque, complex, and focused intently on the psychological relationships between his characters. There is very little ‘plot’ here in the conventional sense. The bowl in the title is a gift from one couple to another – but there’s a lot more to it than that of course. It will not be giving away too much of the story to say that it concerns an American heiress as she becomes aware of the secret affair between her new husband and her father’s young wife.

Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The Cambridge Companion to Henry JamesThe Cambridge Companion to Henry James is intended to provide a critical introduction to James’ work. Throughout the major critical shifts of the past fifty years, and despite suspicions of the traditional high literary culture that was James’ milieu, as a writer he has retained a powerful hold on readers and critics alike. All the essays in this compilation are written at a level free from technical jargon, designed to promote accessibility to the study of James and his work.

Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© Roy Johnson 2010

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

Henry James illustrated life

by

biography with period illustrations and photographs

Henry James illustrated life is a biography of the great writer in Thames and Hudson ‘s Literary Lives series. It features a scholarly but accessible account of his career surrounded by lavish illustrations and photographs that capture all the amazing cultural depth of his experience, plus a visual record of the literary modernism which he helped to bring about. When I bought my brand new copy from Amazon recently, it cost me the princely sum of one penny.

Henry James

Henry James came from a distinguished American family. His grandfather had been a poor Irish immigrant who as an energetic businessman made himself into one of the first American millionaires. James’s father wanted nothing to do with commerce, and became a religious philosopher instead (whilst living on the family’s money). James junior was born in New York in 1843 near what is now Washington Square. The family travelled to England and Germany, setting up a pattern of transatlantic allegiances that James was to maintain throughout his life.

He was educated in New York and in what was to become the state capital, Albany. Friends of the James family included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving, and William Makepeace Thackery. The young James read Dickens and was delighted by further visits to London and Paris. He was educated by private tutors, but his somewhat erratic father suddenly decided that American schools were better than European, so the family moved back home and settled in Newport, Rhode Island (where a number of James’s early short stories are set).

A year later James pere decided the exact opposite, and the family went to live in Geneva, where James attended a local technical school. But when he and his elder brother William decided they wanted to study painting they all returned to Rhode Island. By that time the American Civil War had broken out, but neither of the two elder James brothers were to see service. William went back to Europe to study medicine, and Henry after a brief spell at Harvard studying law, gave it up and began to publish his first short stories.

In 1869 he made his first solitary trip to Europe (paid for by his family) and visited London, Florence, and Rome. While he was there he met a number of contemporary artists – William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Ruskin. He was also introduced to George Eliot whom he described as a ‘horse-faced bluestocking’. On outward and return journeys, he took the waters at Malvern for his ailment of persistent constipation.

He returned home, but was so enamoured with Europe that he immediately arranged to go back again as escort to his sister and her aunt on what for him became an extended two year visit. He repaid his expenses on this trip by writing travel essays for the Nation. These were later published as Transatlantic Sketches (1875).

There was an experimental period of living in Europe with his brother William, but the elder James decided to commit himself to America, whilst Henry made what he called his ‘Great Decision’ and stayed there, taking up residence on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. His novel Roderick Hudson (1875) was a big success, and through it he met Turgenev, Flaubert, Zola, and Maupassant.

Despite these attractions and being lionised by the literary establishment in general, James felt he would always be an outsider in Paris, so in 1876 he moved to live in London, which eventually became his permanently adopted country of residence.

Settled there, but with annual excursions to France and Italy, he began to produce the string of successful works of his early and middle period – The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), Daisy Miller (1878), and Washington Square (1880). He also wrote his first undisputed masterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady (1881). His literary output (stories, tales, novels, criticism, and travel books) was so prodigious around this time that Macmillan in England brought out a fourteen volume collection of his works.

Harry Moore’s biography speculates tactfully about James’s ‘private life’ if also rather inconclusively. We now know that James avoided the possibilities of marriage with myriad sophistical excuses, and only very late in life did he allow his latent homosexual tendencies to surface with anything like free rein.

The next major event in his life was his flirtation with the theatre. He spent enormous amounts of time, effort and his own money trying to create a success on the stage. It was all to no avail. He wrote several plays, but none of them were successful either critically or commercially. His final throw of the dice came in 1895 when he put everything into his latest production, Guy Domville. But when he appeared for a curtain call at the end of its opening night, he was booed off the stage.

Following this catastrophe, and disappointed with London society, he moved to live in Rye, Sussex. He also returned to his first love, the novel, producing The Spoils of Poynton (1897), What Masie Knew (1897), and The Awkward Age (1899). He also capitalised on some of his unsuccessful plays by turning their plots into the substance of novels such as The Other House (1896) and The Outcry (1911) – but it has to be said that these compositions are not amongst his most successful works.

The period that followed after 1900 is generally known as James’s ‘major phase’. In it he produced a series of hugely impressive novels, all of them written in his now-famous but rather demanding style of elaborately rich and often very convoluted sentences exploring the psychological subtleties of his characters and the dramatic situations in which he placed them. The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) are now widely regarded as the high-points of his achievement and masterpieces of modern literature.

And yet following this artistic zenith James plunged into a prolonged despair. The twenty-four volume celebratory New York edition of his collected works did not sell well. Even though his lifestyle was quite lavish he was seriously short of money. His friend and fellow-novelist Edith Wharton secretly arranged an advance of $8,000 through their publisher (Scribners) and put his name forward for the Nobel Prize – but it was rejected.

At the outbreak of the First World War he became a British citizen as a gesture of solidarity with his adopted country. But the following year he suffered a series of strokes which affected his mind, and he spent his final days dictating letters which were almost word-for-word copies of Napoleon’s correspondence that he had read many years before. He instructed his secretary to sign them in the Corsican manner – Napoleone.

© Roy Johnson 2015

Henry James illustrated life Buy the book at Amazon UK
Henry James illustrated life Buy the book at Amazon US

Harry T. Moore, Henry James, London: Thames and Hudson, 1974, pp.128, ISBN: 050026032X

Other works by Henry James

Henry James The BostoniansThe Bostonians (1886) is a novel about the early feminist movement. The heroine Verena Tarrant is an ‘inspirational speaker’ who is taken under the wing of Olive Chancellor, a man-hating suffragette and radical feminist. Trying to pull her in the opposite direction is Basil Ransom, a vigorous young man from the South to whom Verena becomes more and more attracted. The dramatic contest to possess her is played out with some witty and often rather sardonic touches, and as usual James keeps the reader guessing about the outcome until the very last page.

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

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

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

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

Longstaff's Marriage Buy the book at Amazon UK
Longstaff's Marriage Buy the book at Amazon US

Henry James – web links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© Roy Johnson 2010

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

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016