Henry James: A Very Short Introduction [Paperback]

From his childhood in a family of leading American intellectuals through his mature life as a major American man of letters, Henry James created a unique body of fiction that represents one of the greatest achievements in the nation's literary history.In this introduction to the work of Henry James, Susan L. Mizruchi places his notoriously difficult and obscure writings in their historical and biographical context. Among the works treated areWashington Square, The Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, andThe Turn of the Screw. These complex accounts of human experience engage with the vital issues of both James's era and our own - gender relations, sexuality, the nature of modernity, the threat of relativism, the role of art. A consistent subject of both literary theory and popular culture, Henry James has had an impact that cannot be overstated.An elegant introduction to one of America's most complex and influential writers.From his childhood in a family of leading American intellectuals through his mature life as a major American man of letters, Henry James (1843-1916) created a unique body of fiction that represents one of the greatest achievements in the nation's literary history. James's transnational life in the US and England and his extraordinary siblings (the philosopher William James and diarist Alice James) made his life as complicated as the fictions he produced. In this elegant introduction to the work of Henry James, Susan L. Mizruchi places the notoriously difficult and obscure writings in their historical and biographical context.As James grew in confidence as a writer, his fictions evolved accordingly. These complex accounts of human experience engage with the vital issues of both James's era and our own. Among the works treated in this introduction areWashington Square, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, and The Turn of the Screw. Through his novels, as wellsÜ