Author: Paul Fisher
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 146685507X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 904
Book Description
An American odyssey that reveals the fascinating complexities of one of history's most brilliant, eccentric, and daring families The James family, one of America's most memorable dynasties, gave the world three famous children: a novelist of genius (Henry), an influential philosopher (William), and an invalid (Alice) who became a feminist icon, despite her sheltered life and struggles with mental illness. Although much has been written on them, many truths about the Jameses have long been camouflaged. The conflicts that defined one of American's greatest families— homosexuality, depression, alcoholism, female oppression—can only now be thoroughly investigated and discussed with candor and understanding. Paul Fisher's grand family saga, House of Wits, rediscovers a family traumatized by the restrictive standards of their times but reaching out for new ideas and ways to live. He follows the five James offspring ("hotel children," Henry called them) and their parents through their privileged travels across the Atlantic; interludes in Newport and Cambridge; the younger boys' engagement in the Civil War; and William and Henry's later adventures in London, Paris, and Italy. He captures the splendor of their era and all the members of the clan—beginning with their mercurial father, who nurtured, inspired, and damaged them, setting the stage for lives of colorful passions, intense rivalries, and extraordinary achievements. House of Wits is a revealing cultural history that revises and completes our understanding of its remarkable protagonists and the changing world where they came of age.
House of Wits
Author: Paul Fisher
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 146685507X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 904
Book Description
An American odyssey that reveals the fascinating complexities of one of history's most brilliant, eccentric, and daring families The James family, one of America's most memorable dynasties, gave the world three famous children: a novelist of genius (Henry), an influential philosopher (William), and an invalid (Alice) who became a feminist icon, despite her sheltered life and struggles with mental illness. Although much has been written on them, many truths about the Jameses have long been camouflaged. The conflicts that defined one of American's greatest families— homosexuality, depression, alcoholism, female oppression—can only now be thoroughly investigated and discussed with candor and understanding. Paul Fisher's grand family saga, House of Wits, rediscovers a family traumatized by the restrictive standards of their times but reaching out for new ideas and ways to live. He follows the five James offspring ("hotel children," Henry called them) and their parents through their privileged travels across the Atlantic; interludes in Newport and Cambridge; the younger boys' engagement in the Civil War; and William and Henry's later adventures in London, Paris, and Italy. He captures the splendor of their era and all the members of the clan—beginning with their mercurial father, who nurtured, inspired, and damaged them, setting the stage for lives of colorful passions, intense rivalries, and extraordinary achievements. House of Wits is a revealing cultural history that revises and completes our understanding of its remarkable protagonists and the changing world where they came of age.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 146685507X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 904
Book Description
An American odyssey that reveals the fascinating complexities of one of history's most brilliant, eccentric, and daring families The James family, one of America's most memorable dynasties, gave the world three famous children: a novelist of genius (Henry), an influential philosopher (William), and an invalid (Alice) who became a feminist icon, despite her sheltered life and struggles with mental illness. Although much has been written on them, many truths about the Jameses have long been camouflaged. The conflicts that defined one of American's greatest families— homosexuality, depression, alcoholism, female oppression—can only now be thoroughly investigated and discussed with candor and understanding. Paul Fisher's grand family saga, House of Wits, rediscovers a family traumatized by the restrictive standards of their times but reaching out for new ideas and ways to live. He follows the five James offspring ("hotel children," Henry called them) and their parents through their privileged travels across the Atlantic; interludes in Newport and Cambridge; the younger boys' engagement in the Civil War; and William and Henry's later adventures in London, Paris, and Italy. He captures the splendor of their era and all the members of the clan—beginning with their mercurial father, who nurtured, inspired, and damaged them, setting the stage for lives of colorful passions, intense rivalries, and extraordinary achievements. House of Wits is a revealing cultural history that revises and completes our understanding of its remarkable protagonists and the changing world where they came of age.
The Complete Works
Author: Henry James
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 15228
Book Description
This meticulously edited Henry James collection includes his complete novels and short stories, as well as literary essays, plays, travel sketches and reports of the great author. The life of Henry James is revealed in different biographies, and in his three autobiographical books._x000D_ Content:_x000D_ Novels:_x000D_ Watch and Ward_x000D_ Roderick Hudson_x000D_ The American_x000D_ The Europeans_x000D_ Confidence_x000D_ Washington Square_x000D_ The Portrait of a Lady_x000D_ The Bostonians_x000D_ The Princess Casamassima_x000D_ The Reverberator_x000D_ The Tragic Muse _x000D_ The Other House_x000D_ The Spoils of Poynton_x000D_ What Maisie Knew_x000D_ The Awkward Age_x000D_ The Sacred Fount_x000D_ The Wings of the Dove_x000D_ The Ambassadors_x000D_ The Golden Bowl_x000D_ The Outcry_x000D_ The Ivory Tower_x000D_ The Sense of the Past_x000D_ Short Stories_x000D_ A Passionate Pilgrim_x000D_ The Last of the Valerii_x000D_ Eugene Pickering_x000D_ The Madonna of the Future_x000D_ The Romance of Certain Old Clothes_x000D_ Madame de Mauves_x000D_ Tales of Three Cities_x000D_ The Impressions of a Cousin_x000D_ Lady Barberina_x000D_ A New England Winter_x000D_ Stories Revived_x000D_ The Author of 'Beltraffio'_x000D_ Pandora_x000D_ The Path of Duty_x000D_ A Light Man_x000D_ A Day of Days_x000D_ Georgina's Reasons_x000D_ A Landscape-Painter_x000D_ Théodolinde _x000D_ Poor Richard_x000D_ Master Eustace_x000D_ A Most Extraordinary Case_x000D_ A London Life_x000D_ The Patagonia_x000D_ The Liar_x000D_ Mrs. Temperly_x000D_ The Real Thing _x000D_ Sir Dominick Ferrand_x000D_ Nona Vincent_x000D_ The Chaperon_x000D_ Greville Fane_x000D_ The Siege of London_x000D_ An International Episode_x000D_ The Pension Beaurepas_x000D_ A Bundle of Letters_x000D_ The Point of View_x000D_ Terminations_x000D_ Embarrassments_x000D_ The Two Magics_x000D_ The Soft Side_x000D_ The Finer Grain_x000D_ Other Stories_x000D_ Plays:_x000D_ Daisy Miller_x000D_ Pyramus and Thisbe_x000D_ Still Waters_x000D_ A Change of Heart_x000D_ The Album_x000D_ Disengaged_x000D_ Tenants_x000D_ The Reprobate_x000D_ Guy Domville_x000D_ The Outcry_x000D_ The High Bid_x000D_ Summersoft_x000D_ Travel Writings:_x000D_ A Little Tour in France_x000D_ English Hours_x000D_ Italian Hours_x000D_ The American Scene_x000D_ Transatlantic Sketches_x000D_ Portraits of Places_x000D_ Essays:_x000D_ Notes on Novelists_x000D_ Views and Reviews_x000D_ Within the Rim and Other Essays_x000D_ French Poets and Novelists_x000D_ Partial Portraits_x000D_ Essays in London and Elsewhere_x000D_ Notes and Reviews_x000D_ Picture and Text_x000D_ Biographies:_x000D_ Hawthorne_x000D_ William Wetmore Story and His Friends_x000D_ Rupert Brooke_x000D_ Autobiographies:_x000D_ A Small Boy and Others_x000D_ Notes of a Son and Brother_x000D_ The Middle Years
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 15228
Book Description
This meticulously edited Henry James collection includes his complete novels and short stories, as well as literary essays, plays, travel sketches and reports of the great author. The life of Henry James is revealed in different biographies, and in his three autobiographical books._x000D_ Content:_x000D_ Novels:_x000D_ Watch and Ward_x000D_ Roderick Hudson_x000D_ The American_x000D_ The Europeans_x000D_ Confidence_x000D_ Washington Square_x000D_ The Portrait of a Lady_x000D_ The Bostonians_x000D_ The Princess Casamassima_x000D_ The Reverberator_x000D_ The Tragic Muse _x000D_ The Other House_x000D_ The Spoils of Poynton_x000D_ What Maisie Knew_x000D_ The Awkward Age_x000D_ The Sacred Fount_x000D_ The Wings of the Dove_x000D_ The Ambassadors_x000D_ The Golden Bowl_x000D_ The Outcry_x000D_ The Ivory Tower_x000D_ The Sense of the Past_x000D_ Short Stories_x000D_ A Passionate Pilgrim_x000D_ The Last of the Valerii_x000D_ Eugene Pickering_x000D_ The Madonna of the Future_x000D_ The Romance of Certain Old Clothes_x000D_ Madame de Mauves_x000D_ Tales of Three Cities_x000D_ The Impressions of a Cousin_x000D_ Lady Barberina_x000D_ A New England Winter_x000D_ Stories Revived_x000D_ The Author of 'Beltraffio'_x000D_ Pandora_x000D_ The Path of Duty_x000D_ A Light Man_x000D_ A Day of Days_x000D_ Georgina's Reasons_x000D_ A Landscape-Painter_x000D_ Théodolinde _x000D_ Poor Richard_x000D_ Master Eustace_x000D_ A Most Extraordinary Case_x000D_ A London Life_x000D_ The Patagonia_x000D_ The Liar_x000D_ Mrs. Temperly_x000D_ The Real Thing _x000D_ Sir Dominick Ferrand_x000D_ Nona Vincent_x000D_ The Chaperon_x000D_ Greville Fane_x000D_ The Siege of London_x000D_ An International Episode_x000D_ The Pension Beaurepas_x000D_ A Bundle of Letters_x000D_ The Point of View_x000D_ Terminations_x000D_ Embarrassments_x000D_ The Two Magics_x000D_ The Soft Side_x000D_ The Finer Grain_x000D_ Other Stories_x000D_ Plays:_x000D_ Daisy Miller_x000D_ Pyramus and Thisbe_x000D_ Still Waters_x000D_ A Change of Heart_x000D_ The Album_x000D_ Disengaged_x000D_ Tenants_x000D_ The Reprobate_x000D_ Guy Domville_x000D_ The Outcry_x000D_ The High Bid_x000D_ Summersoft_x000D_ Travel Writings:_x000D_ A Little Tour in France_x000D_ English Hours_x000D_ Italian Hours_x000D_ The American Scene_x000D_ Transatlantic Sketches_x000D_ Portraits of Places_x000D_ Essays:_x000D_ Notes on Novelists_x000D_ Views and Reviews_x000D_ Within the Rim and Other Essays_x000D_ French Poets and Novelists_x000D_ Partial Portraits_x000D_ Essays in London and Elsewhere_x000D_ Notes and Reviews_x000D_ Picture and Text_x000D_ Biographies:_x000D_ Hawthorne_x000D_ William Wetmore Story and His Friends_x000D_ Rupert Brooke_x000D_ Autobiographies:_x000D_ A Small Boy and Others_x000D_ Notes of a Son and Brother_x000D_ The Middle Years
The Life of Henry James
Author: Peter Collister
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119483093
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 487
Book Description
Discover anew the life and influence of Henry James, part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Critical Biographies series. In The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography, Peter Collister, an established critic and authority on Henry James, offers an original and fully documented account of one of America’s finest writers, who was both a creative practitioner and theorist of the novel. In this volume, James’s life in all its personal and cultural richness is examined alongside a detailed scrutiny of his fiction, essays, biographies, autobiographies, travel writing, plays and reviews. James was a dedicated and brilliant letter-writer and his biographer make judicious use of this material, some of it previously unpublished, evoking in the novelist’s own words the society within which he moved and worked. His gift for friendship, often resulting in close relationships with both men and women, are sensitively explored. Near the beginning of his long and highly productive life, James left America to immerse himself in European culture and history – a necessity, he felt, for the developing artist. In an ironic symmetry he witnessed in his youth the effects of the American Civil War and in his last days, finally becoming a British citizen, despaired at the unfolding tragedy of the Great War in Europe. Sustained, nevertheless, by his own creative energy, he never ceased to believe in the capacity of the arts to enhance and give significance to life. Provides well-informed accounts of Henry James’s youth in New York City, his unconventional education, his extensive travel in Europe, his eventual assimilation into British society, his development as a writer and his personal relationships as a single man. Features discussions of James’s major works in a variety of genres from an assured theoretical and historical perspective. Assesses James’s developing quest for dramatic form in his fiction – the ‘scenic art’ – as well as his critical writing which was to have a lasting influence on the literature and aesthetic values of the twentieth century. Discusses his achieved aspiration to be ‘just literary’, to become what he called that ‘queer monster’, an artist. Charts James’s lifelong interest in art and theatre. An incisive discussion of the life of an author of major stature, The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography offers a refreshingly lucid and human account of a novelist and his often challenging, but rewarding, writing. Peter Collister, a former college Assistant Principal, has published many essays in Europe and America on a range of nineteenth-century British and French authors. He is the author of Writing the Self: Henry James and America and later edited for the university presses of Cambridge and Virginia the award-winning volumes: The Complete Writings of Henry James on Art and Drama, James's autobiographical writings, A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, and The Middle Years, as well as The American Scene.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119483093
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 487
Book Description
Discover anew the life and influence of Henry James, part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Critical Biographies series. In The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography, Peter Collister, an established critic and authority on Henry James, offers an original and fully documented account of one of America’s finest writers, who was both a creative practitioner and theorist of the novel. In this volume, James’s life in all its personal and cultural richness is examined alongside a detailed scrutiny of his fiction, essays, biographies, autobiographies, travel writing, plays and reviews. James was a dedicated and brilliant letter-writer and his biographer make judicious use of this material, some of it previously unpublished, evoking in the novelist’s own words the society within which he moved and worked. His gift for friendship, often resulting in close relationships with both men and women, are sensitively explored. Near the beginning of his long and highly productive life, James left America to immerse himself in European culture and history – a necessity, he felt, for the developing artist. In an ironic symmetry he witnessed in his youth the effects of the American Civil War and in his last days, finally becoming a British citizen, despaired at the unfolding tragedy of the Great War in Europe. Sustained, nevertheless, by his own creative energy, he never ceased to believe in the capacity of the arts to enhance and give significance to life. Provides well-informed accounts of Henry James’s youth in New York City, his unconventional education, his extensive travel in Europe, his eventual assimilation into British society, his development as a writer and his personal relationships as a single man. Features discussions of James’s major works in a variety of genres from an assured theoretical and historical perspective. Assesses James’s developing quest for dramatic form in his fiction – the ‘scenic art’ – as well as his critical writing which was to have a lasting influence on the literature and aesthetic values of the twentieth century. Discusses his achieved aspiration to be ‘just literary’, to become what he called that ‘queer monster’, an artist. Charts James’s lifelong interest in art and theatre. An incisive discussion of the life of an author of major stature, The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography offers a refreshingly lucid and human account of a novelist and his often challenging, but rewarding, writing. Peter Collister, a former college Assistant Principal, has published many essays in Europe and America on a range of nineteenth-century British and French authors. He is the author of Writing the Self: Henry James and America and later edited for the university presses of Cambridge and Virginia the award-winning volumes: The Complete Writings of Henry James on Art and Drama, James's autobiographical writings, A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, and The Middle Years, as well as The American Scene.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fiction
Author: John T. Irwin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421412306
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
A personal interpretation of one of America’s most important writers. “Fitzgerald’s work has always deeply moved me,” writes John T. Irwin. “And this is as true now as it was fifty years ago when I first picked up The Great Gatsby. I can still remember the occasions when I first read each of his novels; remember the time, place, and mood of those early readings, as well as the way each work seemed to speak to something going on in my life at that moment. Because the things that interested Fitzgerald were the things that interested me and because there seemed to be so many similarities in our backgrounds, his work always possessed for me a special, personal authority; it became a form of wisdom, a way of knowing the world, its types, its classes, its individuals.” In his personal tribute to Fitzgerald's novels and short stories, Irwin offers an intricate vision of one of the most important writers in the American canon. The third in Irwin's trilogy of works on American writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fiction resonates back through all of his previous writings, both scholarly and poetic, returning to Fitzgerald's ongoing theme of the twentieth-century American protagonist's conflict between his work and his personal life. This conflict is played out against the typically American imaginative activity of self-creation, an activity that involves a degree of theatrical ability on the protagonist's part as he must first enact the role imagined for himself, which is to say, the self he means to invent. The work is suffused with elements of both Fitzgerald's and Irwin's biographies, and Irwin's immense erudition is on display throughout. Irwin seamlessly ties together details from Fitzgerald's life with elements from his entire body of work and considers central themes connected to wealth, class, work, love, jazz, acceptance, family, disillusionment, and life as theatrical performance.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421412306
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
A personal interpretation of one of America’s most important writers. “Fitzgerald’s work has always deeply moved me,” writes John T. Irwin. “And this is as true now as it was fifty years ago when I first picked up The Great Gatsby. I can still remember the occasions when I first read each of his novels; remember the time, place, and mood of those early readings, as well as the way each work seemed to speak to something going on in my life at that moment. Because the things that interested Fitzgerald were the things that interested me and because there seemed to be so many similarities in our backgrounds, his work always possessed for me a special, personal authority; it became a form of wisdom, a way of knowing the world, its types, its classes, its individuals.” In his personal tribute to Fitzgerald's novels and short stories, Irwin offers an intricate vision of one of the most important writers in the American canon. The third in Irwin's trilogy of works on American writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fiction resonates back through all of his previous writings, both scholarly and poetic, returning to Fitzgerald's ongoing theme of the twentieth-century American protagonist's conflict between his work and his personal life. This conflict is played out against the typically American imaginative activity of self-creation, an activity that involves a degree of theatrical ability on the protagonist's part as he must first enact the role imagined for himself, which is to say, the self he means to invent. The work is suffused with elements of both Fitzgerald's and Irwin's biographies, and Irwin's immense erudition is on display throughout. Irwin seamlessly ties together details from Fitzgerald's life with elements from his entire body of work and considers central themes connected to wealth, class, work, love, jazz, acceptance, family, disillusionment, and life as theatrical performance.
Odisea nº 9: Revista de estudios ingleses
Author: María Elena Jaime de Pablos
Publisher: Universidad Almería
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Revista de Estudios Ingleses es un anuario dirigido y gestionado por miembros del Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana de la Universidad de Almería con el propósito de ofrecer un foro de intercambio de producción científica en campos del conocimiento tan diversos como la lengua inglesa, literatura en lengua inglesa, didáctica del inglés, traducción, inglés para fines específicos y otros igualmente vinculados a los estudios ingleses.
Publisher: Universidad Almería
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Revista de Estudios Ingleses es un anuario dirigido y gestionado por miembros del Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana de la Universidad de Almería con el propósito de ofrecer un foro de intercambio de producción científica en campos del conocimiento tan diversos como la lengua inglesa, literatura en lengua inglesa, didáctica del inglés, traducción, inglés para fines específicos y otros igualmente vinculados a los estudios ingleses.
Henry James and the Culture of Publicity
Author: Richard Salmon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521562492
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
This book examines the relationship between the writings of Henry James and the historical formation of mass culture. Throughout his career, James was concerned with such characteristically modern cultural forms as advertising, biography and the New Journalism, forms which together constituted the 'devouring publicity' of modern life. Richard Salmon's study situates James's fiction and criticism within the context of the contemporary debates surrounding these rival discursive practices. He explores both the nature of James's contribution to the critique of mass culture and the extent of his immersion within it. James's persistent and ambivalent negotiation of the boundaries between private and public experience ranged from a defence of the artist's right to privacy, to his own counter-practice of publicity.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521562492
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
This book examines the relationship between the writings of Henry James and the historical formation of mass culture. Throughout his career, James was concerned with such characteristically modern cultural forms as advertising, biography and the New Journalism, forms which together constituted the 'devouring publicity' of modern life. Richard Salmon's study situates James's fiction and criticism within the context of the contemporary debates surrounding these rival discursive practices. He explores both the nature of James's contribution to the critique of mass culture and the extent of his immersion within it. James's persistent and ambivalent negotiation of the boundaries between private and public experience ranged from a defence of the artist's right to privacy, to his own counter-practice of publicity.
Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture
Author: Michele Mendelssohn
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748697543
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
This book, the first fully sustained reading of Henry James's and Oscar Wilde's relationship, reveals why the antagonisms between both authors are symptomatic of the cultural oppositions within Aestheticism itself.
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748697543
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
This book, the first fully sustained reading of Henry James's and Oscar Wilde's relationship, reveals why the antagonisms between both authors are symptomatic of the cultural oppositions within Aestheticism itself.
Adapting to the Stage
Author: Chris Greenwood
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351764691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
This title was first published in 2000: The American novelist and playwright, Henry James, was drawn to the theatre and the shifting conventions of drama throughout his writing career. This study demonstrates that from the 1890s onwards James concentrated on adapting his novels and stories to and from the stage, and increasingly employed metaphors that spoke of novel-writing in terms of playwriting. Christopher Greenwood argues that these metaphors helped James to conceive himself as an artist who composed characters dramatically and visually, and in doing so sets his novels significantly apart from those of his contemporaries. In the introduction to the first part of the book, Greenwood examines James's career within the context of contemporary European and North American theatre, providing an appraisal of what James gained from contemporary theatre, his position in that milieu, and what he brought to it. Part 2 of the book focuses on two novels: "The Other House" and "The Spoils of Poynton", both of which illustrate the ways in which James used the mechanism of contemporary theatre to communicate a character's personality. Discussion of these two works is used to throw light on similar concerns that develop in James's later writing.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351764691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
This title was first published in 2000: The American novelist and playwright, Henry James, was drawn to the theatre and the shifting conventions of drama throughout his writing career. This study demonstrates that from the 1890s onwards James concentrated on adapting his novels and stories to and from the stage, and increasingly employed metaphors that spoke of novel-writing in terms of playwriting. Christopher Greenwood argues that these metaphors helped James to conceive himself as an artist who composed characters dramatically and visually, and in doing so sets his novels significantly apart from those of his contemporaries. In the introduction to the first part of the book, Greenwood examines James's career within the context of contemporary European and North American theatre, providing an appraisal of what James gained from contemporary theatre, his position in that milieu, and what he brought to it. Part 2 of the book focuses on two novels: "The Other House" and "The Spoils of Poynton", both of which illustrate the ways in which James used the mechanism of contemporary theatre to communicate a character's personality. Discussion of these two works is used to throw light on similar concerns that develop in James's later writing.
Henry James: Novels 1901-1902 (LOA #162)
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598536257
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 754
Book Description
This Library of America volume brings together one of Henry James’s most unusual experiments and one of his most beloved masterpieces Writing to his friend William Dean Howells, Henry James characterized his experimental novel, The Sacred Fount, as the only one of his novels to be told in the first person, as “a fine flight into the high fantastic.” While traveling to the country house of Newmarch for a weekend party, the nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that a person may become younger or cleverer by tapping the “sacred fount” of another person. Convinced that Grace Brissenden has become younger by drawing upon her husband, Guy, the narrator seeks to discover the source of the newfound wit of Gilbert Long, previously “a fine piece of human furniture.” His perplexing and ambiguous quest, and the varying reactions it provokes from the other guests, calls into question the imaginative inquiry central to James’s art of the novel. James described the essential idea of The Wings of the Dove as “a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world.” The heroine, a wealthy young American heiress, Milly Theale (inspired by James’s beloved cousin Minny Temple), is slowly drawn into a trap set for her by the English adventuress Kate Croy and her lover, the journalist Morton Densher. The unexpected outcome of their mercenary scheme provides the resolution to a tragic story of love and betrayal, innocence and experience that has long been acknowledged as one of James’s supreme achievements as a novelist. This volume prints the New York Edition text of The Wings of the Dove, and includes the illuminating preface James wrote for that edition. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598536257
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 754
Book Description
This Library of America volume brings together one of Henry James’s most unusual experiments and one of his most beloved masterpieces Writing to his friend William Dean Howells, Henry James characterized his experimental novel, The Sacred Fount, as the only one of his novels to be told in the first person, as “a fine flight into the high fantastic.” While traveling to the country house of Newmarch for a weekend party, the nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that a person may become younger or cleverer by tapping the “sacred fount” of another person. Convinced that Grace Brissenden has become younger by drawing upon her husband, Guy, the narrator seeks to discover the source of the newfound wit of Gilbert Long, previously “a fine piece of human furniture.” His perplexing and ambiguous quest, and the varying reactions it provokes from the other guests, calls into question the imaginative inquiry central to James’s art of the novel. James described the essential idea of The Wings of the Dove as “a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world.” The heroine, a wealthy young American heiress, Milly Theale (inspired by James’s beloved cousin Minny Temple), is slowly drawn into a trap set for her by the English adventuress Kate Croy and her lover, the journalist Morton Densher. The unexpected outcome of their mercenary scheme provides the resolution to a tragic story of love and betrayal, innocence and experience that has long been acknowledged as one of James’s supreme achievements as a novelist. This volume prints the New York Edition text of The Wings of the Dove, and includes the illuminating preface James wrote for that edition. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
A London Life
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598536273
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
One of the masterworks of Henry James's middle phase, the novella A London Life first appeared in serial form in Scribner's Magazine in the summer of 1888. As the story opens, Laura Wing, a young American woman, is living with her sister Selina and brother-in-law Lionel Berrington at Mellows, the Berrington family estate outside London, where she has a front-row seat for marital discord and its baleful effects on the couple's children. As Laura struggles to come to terms with her sister's possible infidelity, and its ramifications for her own social standing, the scene moves to London, where James stages an unforgettable portrait of a marriage's final dissolution. For literary critic Edward Wagenknecht, Laura Wing is one of James's essential heroines: "there is no character is his books--not even Isabel Archer, not even Fleda Vetch--to whom James commits himself more unreservedly."
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598536273
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
One of the masterworks of Henry James's middle phase, the novella A London Life first appeared in serial form in Scribner's Magazine in the summer of 1888. As the story opens, Laura Wing, a young American woman, is living with her sister Selina and brother-in-law Lionel Berrington at Mellows, the Berrington family estate outside London, where she has a front-row seat for marital discord and its baleful effects on the couple's children. As Laura struggles to come to terms with her sister's possible infidelity, and its ramifications for her own social standing, the scene moves to London, where James stages an unforgettable portrait of a marriage's final dissolution. For literary critic Edward Wagenknecht, Laura Wing is one of James's essential heroines: "there is no character is his books--not even Isabel Archer, not even Fleda Vetch--to whom James commits himself more unreservedly."