Henry James
2 books analyzed
Biography
Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York to a wealthy, intellectually extraordinary family. His brother William James became the preeminent American philosopher and psychologist. Henry lived much of his adult life in England, eventually becoming a British citizen in 1915 as a protest against American neutrality in World War I. He never married. He spent his life observing, in American expatriates in Europe, the collision of innocence and experience, freedom and form, New World energy and Old World constraint. The Portrait of a Lady drew on his observation of several American women in European society, most notably his cousin Minny Temple, who died young of tuberculosis and whom he described as 'the very heroine of our common scene.'
Henry James at a glance
Works
The Portrait of a Lady
1881 · 656 pages · ★★★★☆ Advanced
A young American woman with everything goes to Europe, refuses every offer of freedom, and walks deliberately into the most elegant trap in literary history.
The Turn of the Screw
1898 · 118 pages · ★★★★☆ Advanced
The most famous ambiguity in English literature: a governess sees ghosts — or loses her mind — and a child dies in her arms.
Diction Across Works
formal-analytical
formal-oblique