Complete Stories 1874–1884

Library of America #106

by Henry James, Edward W. Said (Editor), William Vance (Editor)

In the years when he achieved his greatest success as a novelist, Henry James was also contributing stories prolifically to popular magazines. Stories collected in this Library of America volume (the second of five volumes of James’s stories) show James working out, in a more concise fictional laboratory, themes that appear in such novels of the period as The Portrait of a Lady and The Bostonians. They include some of his most famous explorations of the international theme: “Daisy Miller,” the unforgettable portrayal of an innocent, headstrong American girl at odds with European mores, “An International Episode” and “Lady Barberina,” satirically probing tales of English aristocrats and the American marriage market, and “The Siege of London,” in which an American widow strives to work her way into English society.

In “A Bundle of Letters” and “The Point of View,” James makes a fascinating experimental use of the epistolary form. “Professor Fargo” presents an unusually bleak view of the darker side of American life, while “The Author of ‘Beltraffio’” offers a disturbing portrait of a fin-de-siècle novelist. Throughout, James wittily limns the demands and hidden struggles of social life, and hones his mastery of the unexpected resolution and the brilliantly framed moral portrait.

Adventurous in narrative technique, yet marked by precise observation rendered in quicksilver prose, the stories of James’s middle period present a breathtaking array of memorable characters and beguiling scenarios.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, American, 19th Century, Classics, Collections, Literature

941 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1884

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

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novantanove

(Dedicated to Canadian Julie)

There was a great writer called James
Now if you get confused as to names
Henry's the first name
James is the surname...
...But I still get mixed up all the same

A sinistra... / A destra...


.

[Brian Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second volume of the superb stories of Henry James. This one contains the famous "Daisy Miller" and the frequently anthologized "The Author of Beltraffio", but the gems are all of the stories. Though certain readers will gravitate towards the subjects of some stories more than others, James evolves as an artist here, just as he branches out into the longer novel form ("Roderick Hudson" and "Portrait of a Lady" emerged in this time frame, as well as "Washington Square").

What sets James out is that the stories haunt a reader for a period of time after completing them, just as the best stories do. Though James has his thematic occupations - the nature of art itself, both literary and artistic, the influence of securing money in relation to long term marital happiness, the conflict between new world American values against old world European ones - the reader never feels as if he is repeating himself. Always full of insight and psychological depth, James must have been one of the keenest eyes observing social interaction. Amongst the very best in the short fiction ouevre. Bravo.

[Doris Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

NICE BOOK.

[Philip Sussman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume two of the Complete Stories.

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I'll be honest; I didn't read the whole thing. But I did read all the novellas, and James is great at novellas.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 4 out of 5]

James's skill as a story writer continued to improve during the timeframe covered by this volume of his works. For the first half of the book his stories are somewhat uneven in quality; while he always has a wonderful eye for details and for social niceties, often his early stories fail to be engaging for one reason or another. We see him experimenting with humor (not very successfully in my opinion) in some stories here, and later (more successfully) with form: diary entries and letters, rather than more conventional narrative techniques. The latter half of this volume, however, is very good indeed (this roughly corresponds to his simultaneous breakthrough improvement as a novelist). The story that closes the volume, "The Author of 'Beltraffio'," for example, takes James's interest in aesthetics and adds some real-world stakes to the subject. This vivifies the topic and makes for an excellent story (told by a narrator, by the way, who admits his own responsibility for the tragedy that results). This story looks forward to "The Aspren Papers," though with less ambiguity than that story employs. Other fine works here include the _very_ engaging, "The Impression of a Cousin," "The Point of View," "The Siege of London," and "Lady Barberina." In many of these tales James's own status as an emigre and his consequent experiences of cultural hybridity feed his tales; he must have been a very unusual writer in his time. As for "Daisy Miller," I found myself at a loss to explain why so many generations of literary critics and teachers found t his story to be important. I imagine it was because it supposedly showed the consequences of a young lady stepping outside the accepted customs of her time (though given James's sympathy with women in general, I think this would be a major misreading of the text). In any case, that famous work struck me as merely being a historical oddity among other, more engaging and important stories.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James’s Complete Stories: 1874-1884 is the second of five volumes of James’s short stories published in the Library of America. Even more than in the first volume, the stories are characterized by a set of dualities: social convention v. personal freedom, beatific life v. death, parochialism v. cosmopolitanism, unrequited love v. passion, and so forth. There are, however, few happy endings, in part because James presents a complex view of reality in which human desires seldom triumph. Worth reading by anyone with an interest in Henry James or in late nineteenth-century American fiction.

[Andrea Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The inimitable Henry James is master not only of the super long sentence, but also of the short fiction form … His complete mastery of suggestion and nuance is unparalleled … Of particular note are “Daisy Miller: A Study,” “The Impressions of a Cousin,” and “The Author of ‘Beltraffio’” … includes a helpful Henry James Chronology …