Henry James: The Complete Novellas and Tales

by Henry James

This book contains the complete novellas and tales of Henry James in the chronological order of their original publication.

5440 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 18, 2016

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

[William Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. Demanding and yet light, once you give into the complex syntax and louche tide of prose. Working my way through this massive tome, all of James’s stories and novellas, will take time. Counterintuitively I decided to read backward through each chunk that corresponds to the Library of America 5 volume version of James’s shorter fiction…my logic being that the prose will get less occluded over time, as his prose is generally regarded to have done over his career. I’ve finished what amounts to volume 5, which was lovely. The longer novellas, like In the Cage, and long stories like The Birthplace, were lovely surprises, highly recommended. Even the pieces adapted from planned/unproduced/uncompleted plays—often light, dialogue heavy pieces—are a pleasure. It’s an old cliché, but true, that James gets better as one gets older. I’ve read or re-read of his novels over the last year, plus 1/5 of this collection, and will be going back for more soon.