Henry James: Literary Criticism: Essays on Literature, American Writers, English Writers

by Henry James

Henry James, renowned as one of the world’s great novelists, was also one of the most illuminating, audacious, and masterly critics of modern times. This Library of America volume and its companion are a fitting testimony to his unprecedented achievement. They offer the only comprehensive collection of his critical writings ever assembled, more than one-third of which have never appeared in book form.

This first volume focuses especially on his responses to American and English writers; the second volume contains his essays on European literature and the Prefaces to the New York Edition of his fiction.

From 1864 until virtually the end of his life, James displayed an astonishing range and catholicity of critical interests, touching on nearly every facet of literature in America, England, and Europe. Here are his most important theoretical essays, including his witty and daring declarations of the novelist’s freedom in “The Art of Fiction,” “The Future of the Novel,” and “The Science of Criticism”—a gently ironic title from a writer who regarded criticism as a form of art.

Appreciations of Ralph Waldo Emerson (“I knew he was great, greater than any of our friends”), pungent comments (which he later regretted) on Walt Whitman’s “Drum-Taps,” and assessments of Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe, his friend and admirer William Dean Howells, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Francis Parkman, and scores of other American writers are joined, in revealing proximity, to commentaries on nearly every important English writer of fiction (and some poets, such as the Brownings) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

These reviews of English writers include James’s stunning essay on Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, his provocative discussions of George Eliot, and his tough but appreciative estimates of Anthony Trollope, Matthew Arnold, Benjamin Disraeli, Elizabeth Gaskell, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, William Morris, Rupert Brooke, Ouida, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Also included here is his great essay on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. All of these pieces are gathered under the author considered, so that James’s supple changes in attitude can be followed across the years.

Of particular interest, both critically and biographically, are James’s commentaries on Nathaniel Hawthorne, including his still-controversial book-length study of 1879. His estimates of his predecessor’s work remain highly debatable, but are perhaps more interesting as evidence of his own feelings about being an American writer of a later and, as he assumed, more complex time.

Finally, this volume includes two invaluable collections: his “American Letters” and “London Notes,” wherein, with unsurpassed tact and grandeur of mind, he introduces readers of his native and of his adopted country to each other.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Essays, Writing, 19th Century, Literature, American

1504 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1984

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Велислав Върбанов · Rating 5 out of 5]

Разкошен сборник с есета на големия писател и литературен критик Хенри Джеймс!



„Онова състояние на нещата, което би трябвало да се приеме като правило, днес е изключение, при това изключение, заради което, изглежда, често трябва да се търси оправдание. Мелница, която мели житото ритмично, постигайки нужното за пазара качество на брашното - това е образът, който се налага, ако се съди по това как пишат повечето от членовете на братството. Те произвеждат точно такава статия, каквато се търси, предлагат определени специалитети и бизнесът върви благодарение на полезната, добре изпитана рецепта. Мистър Стивънсън е личност тъкмо защото няма свой специалитет и защото неговата любознателност е единствената рецепта, която той следва. Всяка една от книгите му е независима от останалите - прозорец, разкриващ различна гледка. „Доктор Джекил и мистър Хайд“ ни най-малко не прилича на „Островът на съкровищата“; „Virginibus Puerisque“ няма нищо общо с „Нови хиляда и една нощ“ и лично аз никога не бих предположил, че „Детска градина на поезията“ е написана от ръката на автора на „Принц Ото“.
Макар че мистър Стивънсън обръща голямо внимание на фразата, както би трябвало да прави всеки уважаващ себе си и изкуството си писател, не е нужно да четем чак толкова внимателно неговите книги, за да разберем, че не това го интересува най-много и че в крайна сметка за него експресивният стил е само средство...“

Хенри Джеймс за Робърт Луис Стивънсън

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Есетата на Хенри Джеймс са страхотни. Думата"Критика" в заглавието за мен е страшно отблъскваща и дори не изразява същността на тези есета в съвременния им смисъл. Портретът на Тургенев беше може би най-доброто. Много се забавлявах и на литературното ревю на 'Даниъл Доронда'- там Хенри Джеймс изиграва театър, представяйки мненията си чрез трима персонажи, които олицетворяват неговите собствени вкусове. Това ме учуди, защото подходът му звучи много напредничаво не само за епохата си, но и за днешните времена, които непрекъснато ме карат да се чудя защо днешните дебати и разговори за литература са толкова тъпи и прости. Поне в България.

[Ренета Кирова · Rating 3 out of 5]

Книгата се състои от класически есета за литературата, белетристиката, писателите, творили през 19 век и техните произведения.
Авторът е ерудиран и стилът му на писане е интересен. Разсъждава обширно върху литературни теми, разказва за Робърт Луис Стивънсън, Натаниъл Хоторн, Ралф Уолдо Емерсън, Гюстав Флобер, Иван Тургенев и други автори-класици, както и за някои известни тогава произведения на литературата. Джеймс не е харесвал поезията, затова е писал само за белетристиката.
Колкото и да е съвършен езика на автора, не можах да му се насладя. Не ми въздейства, но не съжалявам, че го прочетох, защото прочетеното не се губи.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This LOA volume doesn't have much of interest to a general reader, and there are several problems that make it problematic for a literary specialist as well. Those who want to learn more about Henry James, his theory on writing, and his tastes in reading will need to read this entire work (and likely the second volume as well) to gain such insights. Again, however, the way this volume was put together and the supporting critical superstructure do not help general or specialist reader to gain such insights easily. The book is divided into three sections. The first (and shortest) section contains "general" essays on literature (the scare quotes indicate that, while in some ways this is a correct heading, in other ways it is not: this section does contain James's most famous essay on the novel as an aesthetic form, but it also serves as a sort of catch-all for some book reviews that otherwise would not fit into any of the other categories the editor used). The second contains essays and book reviews on American writers (including James's book-length study of Hawthorne). The third and longest section contains essays and reviews on English writers. Both the American and English Writers categories, like the "Essays on Literature" category, are mostly accurate but also a little misleading. For instance, a book review that is supposedly about Ralph Waldo Emerson (and thus included in "American Writers") is actually more about Carlyle (and thus should have been included in "English Writers"). There are similar inconsistencies throughout this volume. Another annoyance for the contemporary reader is that none of James's frequent usages of foreign words and phrases (frequently French) are translated in the notes. This includes one-half page of an excerpt of a letter by Sainte-Beuve, presented in French without translation and nearly without comment. Yet another annoying feature of the book is that writers in the latter two sections are presented in alphabetical order by last name rather than chronologically as written by James (further, the scholarly information at the back of the volume that presents specific information about the original publication of each of the items in the book does NOT present the items in the order in which they appear in the book, but DOES present them chronologically; thus, if you wanted to find the detailed bibliographical information on a specific book review, you would have to spend several minutes hunting it down only knowing roughly when it was published in relation to other items in the volume).

Some of the interesting things we learn about James are: 1) that he was a terrible reader of works after only one reading (he often needed time to think about what he had read): this makes many of his reviews not only untrustworthy as evaluative indicators of the works James read, but also gives some amusement (James calls Trollope several times a "stupid" writer of "stupid" books; however, as the lovely essay James wrote on the occasion of Trollope's death indicates, he eventually understood what Trollope was doing after James had had 20 years to reflect on Trollope's particular brand of "realism"); 2) James was frequently harsh as a young book reviewer (some of the items included in the book were not published during James's lifetime because they were considered too blunt by editors), and he frequently broke his own pet peeves in his later work; 3) James could also be very generous and thoughtful in his remarks about writers he had the opportunity of observing for many years: the four writers who take up the most space in this volume (Hawthorne, George Eliot, Thackeray, and Trollope) all benefit from that thoughtfulness and generosity, while some writers we only get a glimpse of James's change of opinion (Whitman is notable in this vein); and 4) James loved all works on travel, but most especially those dealing with Africa: he never gave a bad review to a travel narrative, even when he knew the events to be spurious.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as tremendous as I had hoped, but this compendium of James' literary criticism appealed to me on a level which shined a light on many of my literary icons, in particular George Eliot, that I was grateful to read the pages therein. Three stars.

[Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Based on reviews written here by Henry James, I've purchased a couple more books for reading.
If modern reviewers had the depth and capacity of interpretation, book sales would undoubtedly spike up.

[Sherwood Smith]

Though I don't care much for James' literature (there is too much of a "women are basically unclean" taint that I detect at the keelson of his barques) I often revisit his reviews and essays. His predictions for future success of various authors were not always right (P.G. Wodehouse was a flash in the pan, Hugh Walpole's work would endure to classic status) but his insights and discussions of the fin-de-siecle novel in particular are fascinating.

[Emily]

In 2008, I resolve to check this book out from the library, scan it in a cursory manner, and give up on it completely.

Jan 28 2008: Done!