Henry James

• 1. Transatlantic Origins And Family

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  Henry James was born at 21 Washington Place in Manhattan on the 15th of April 1843. His father Henry James Sr. inherited a fortune from his own father William James, who had emigrated from County Cavan to Albany and became the second richest man in New York state after John Jacob Astor. The family moved to Europe before Henry turned one year old, living briefly in Windsor Great Park before returning to America. They spent much of his childhood shuttling between his grandmother's home in Albany and a house on West Fourteenth Street where a painting by Thomas Cole hung in the parlor. Between 1855 and 1860 the household traveled to London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bonn, and Newport Rhode Island. Henry studied primarily with tutors while the family moved across continents. He developed fluency in French during long stays in France but suffered from a stutter when speaking English. In 1860 the family returned to Newport where he befriended painter John La Farge and literary academic Thomas Sergeant Perry. That same summer he visited an encampment of wounded Union soldiers at Portsmouth Grove. Later that autumn he received an injury fighting a fire which made him unfit for military service during the Civil War.

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• 2. Expatriate Life In London

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  In the fall of 1875 James moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris before settling permanently in London. He established relationships with Macmillan and other publishers who paid for serial installments published as books. The audience for these serialized novels consisted largely of middle-class women. James lived in rented rooms yet joined gentlemen's clubs including the Travellers' Club and the Reform Club. He became an honorary member of the Savile Club and St James's Club. By 1882 he was also admitted to the Athenaeum Club. In England he met leading figures of politics and culture. His novel Daisy Miller appeared in 1878 establishing his fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The story drew notice because it depicted a woman whose behavior fell outside European social norms. He began work on what would become his first masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady which appeared in 1881. During this period he followed the careers of French realists like Émile Zola whose stylistic methods influenced his own writing. Hawthorne's influence faded during this time replaced by George Eliot and Ivan Turgenev. The years from 1878 to 1881 saw the publication of The Europeans Washington Square Confidence and The Portrait of a Lady.

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• 3. Evolution Of Literary Style

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  James's prose evolved through three distinct phases over his career. His apprentice years culminated with The Portrait of a Lady featuring simple direct style by Victorian standards. He experimented widely with forms generally narrating from conventionally omniscient points of view. Plots concerned romance except for three big novels of social commentary concluding this phase. From 1890 to about 1897 he wrote short stories and plays abandoning the serialized novel format. Beginning in that second period but most noticeably in his third phase he increasingly abandoned direct statement. Single paragraphs ran page after page containing initial nouns succeeded by pronouns surrounded by clouds of adjectives and prepositional clauses far from their original referents. Verbs were deferred then preceded by series of adverbs creating vivid evocations of scenes as perceived by sensitive observers. This change occurred during composition of What Maisie Knew possibly engendered by James shifting from writing to dictating to a typist. His later work foreshadowed extensive developments in twentieth-century fiction influencing stream-of-consciousness writers like Virginia Woolf who read some of his novels and wrote essays about them. Contemporary and modern readers found the late style difficult and unnecessary. Edith Wharton said some passages were almost incomprehensible while H.G. Wells parodied him as a hippopotamus laboriously attempting to pick up a pea.

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• 4. Theatrical Experiments And Failures

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  James made strenuous efforts to succeed on the London stage between 1890 and 1892 writing half a dozen plays with only one produced. A dramatisation of The American earned modest returns but did not generate significant money for him. In 1893 actor-manager George Alexander requested a serious play for opening his renovated St. James's Theatre. James wrote Guy Domville which Alexander produced. A noisy uproar arose on opening night the 5th of January 1895 with hissing from the gallery when James took his bow after final curtain. The author was upset though reviews were moderately good. The play had a modest run of four weeks before being taken off to make way for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. After these stresses James insisted he would write no more theatre work yet within weeks agreed to write a curtain-raiser for Ellen Terry. This became Summersoft later rewritten into short story Covering End then expanded into full-length play The High Bid which had brief run in London in 1907. He wrote three new plays two in production when death of Edward VII on the 6th of May 1910 plunged London into mourning. Discouraged by failing health and theatrical stress James recycled his plays as successful novels. The Outcry became best-seller in United States when published in 1911. During 1890-1893 when most engaged with theatre James wrote substantial theatrical criticism assisting Elizabeth Robins translating Henrik Ibsen for first time in London.

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• 5. Psychological Themes And Ghost Stories

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  James's novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered reputation as most analyzed and ambiguous ghost story in English language. It remains his most widely adapted work across other media appearing twenty-eight times in film television and music video from 1933 to 2018. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories including The Jolly Corner. His works frequently juxtapose characters from Old World Europe embodying feudal civilization that is beautiful often corrupt and alluring against New World Americans who are brash open assertive embodying virtues like personal freedom and exacting moral character. Many of his stories function as psychological thought experiments about selection. In preface to New York edition of The American he described development of story exactly such situation involving robust but insidiously beguiled and betrayed compatriot. The Portrait of a Lady serves as experiment seeing what happens when idealistic young woman suddenly becomes very rich. Characters seem to exemplify alternative futures and possibilities as marked in The Jolly Story where protagonist and ghost-doppelganger live alternative American and European lives. In others like The Ambassadors older James seems fondly to regard own younger self facing crucial moment. His later work foreshadowed extensive developments in twentieth-century fiction influencing stream-of-consciousness writers like Virginia Woolf.

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• 6. Sexuality And Personal Correspondence

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  James regularly rejected suggestions that he should marry after settling in London proclaiming himself bachelor. F.W. Dupee originated theory that he had been in love with cousin Mary Temple though neurotic fear kept him from admitting affections. Between 1953 and 1972 Leon Edel wrote major five-volume biography using unpublished letters gaining permission of James's family. Edel's portrayal included suggestion he was celibate view first propounded by critic Saul Rosenzweig in 1943. Sheldon M. Novick published Henry James: The Young Master in 1996 causing uproar challenging previous received notion of celibacy. A letter James wrote in old age to Hugh Walpole has been cited as explicit statement regarding this. Walpole confessed indulging in high jinks James replied endorsing it saying we must know what we are talking about having lived loved cursed floundered enjoyed suffered. He never regretted single excess of responsive youth. Letters to expatriate American sculptor Hendrik Christian Andersen attracted particular attention. James met twenty-seven-year-old Andersen in Rome in 1899 when James was fifty-six writing intensely emotional letters calling him dearest boy counting on feeling him in every throb of soul. In letter of the 6th of May 1904 to brother William James referred to himself as always your hopelessly celibate even though sexagenarian Henry. How accurate that description might have been subject of contention among biographers.

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• 7. Critical Reception And Legacy

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  James's work remained steadily popular with limited audience of educated readers during lifetime yet after death some American critics expressed hostility toward his long expatriation and eventual naturalization as British subject. Van Wyck Brooks condemned James for cutting himself off from America while E.M. Forster complained about squeamishness treatment of sex dismissing late style as difficult relying heavily on extremely long sentences. Oscar Wilde criticized him for writing fiction as if painful duty. Virginia Woolf asked what anyone could find in Henry James reading faintly tinged rose water urbane sleek but vulgar pale. W. Somerset Maugham argued great novelists lived life passionately while James content to observe it from window. Despite criticisms James now valued for psychological moral realism masterful creation character low-key playful humor assured command language. Edward Wagenknecht offered assessment echoing Theodora Bosanquet saying James one of major figures trans-Atlantic literature. F.R. Leavis championed Henry James as novelist established pre-eminence in Great Tradition asserting Portrait of a Lady and Bostonians two most brilliant novels language. He is now prized as master point of view moving literary fiction forward insisting showing not telling stories reader. His works have been adapted film television music video over 150 times from 1933 to 2018 majority English with adaptations French Spanish Italian German Portuguese Yugoslavian Swedish.

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