The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

If anyone would like to add any interesting tidbits about Henry James or The Bostonians (without spoilers, naturally!), please feel free.

Here is some biographical information about Henry James, from his Wikipedia page:

Henry James (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) was an American 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 renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove. His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often made use of 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 also wrote a number of other highly regarded ghost stories and is considered one of the greatest masters of the field.

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, one year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916.
While living in London, James continued to follow the careers of the French realists, Émile Zola in particular. Their stylistic methods influenced his own work in the years to come.[15] Hawthorne's influence on him faded during this period, replaced by George Eliot and Ivan Turgenev.[9] The period from 1878 to 1881 saw the publication of The Europeans, Washington Square, Confidence, and The Portrait of a Lady.

The Bostonians was published serially in The Century Magazine in 1885-1886.

Beyond his fiction, James was one of the more important literary critics in the history of the novel. In his classic essay The Art of Fiction (1884), he argued against rigid prescriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest possible freedom in content and approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality. James wrote many valuable critical articles on other novelists; typical is his book-length study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which has been the subject of critical debate. Richard Brodhead has suggested that the study was emblematic of James's struggle with Hawthorne's influence, and constituted an effort to place the elder writer "at a disadvantage." Gordon Fraser, meanwhile, has suggested that the study was part of a more commercial effort by James to introduce himself to British readers as Hawthorne's natural successor.

At 22 James wrote The Noble School of Fiction for The Nation's first issue in 1865. He would write, in all, over 200 essays and book, art, and theatre reviews for the magazine.

For most of his life James harboured ambitions for success as a playwright. He converted his novel The American into a play that enjoyed modest returns in the early 1890s. In all he wrote about a dozen plays, most of which went unproduced. His costume drama Guy Domville failed disastrously on its opening night in 1895. James then largely abandoned his efforts to conquer the stage and returned to his fiction. In his Notebooks he maintained that his theatrical experiment benefited his novels and tales by helping him dramatise his characters' thoughts and emotions. James produced a small but valuable amount of theatrical criticism, including perceptive appreciations of Henrik Ibsen.

With his wide-ranging artistic interests, James occasionally wrote on the visual arts. Perhaps his most valuable contribution was his favourable assessment of fellow expatriate John Singer Sargent, a painter whose critical status has improved markedly in recent decades. James also wrote sometimes charming, sometimes brooding articles about various places he visited and lived in. His most famous books of travel writing include Italian Hours (an example of the charming approach) and The American Scene (on the brooding side).

James was one of the great letter-writers of any era. More than ten thousand of his personal letters are extant, and over three thousand have been published in a large number of collections. A complete edition of James's letters began publication in 2006, edited by Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias. As of 2014, eight volumes have been published, covering the period from 1855 to 1880. James's correspondents included celebrated contemporaries like Robert Louis Stevenson, Edith Wharton and Joseph Conrad, along with many others in his wide circle of friends and acquaintances. The letters range from the "mere twaddle of graciousness" to serious discussions of artistic, social and personal issues.
Very late in life James began a series of autobiographical works: A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, and the unfinished The Middle Years. These books portray the development of a classic observer who was passionately interested in artistic creation but was somewhat reticent about participating fully in the life around him.

About The Bostonians, from Wikipedia (no spoilers beyond the usual back-of-the-book description):

The Bostonians is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885–1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centres on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The storyline concerns the struggle between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama of political activists, newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.

We will be reading two books at the same time which each have a man named Basil as either the main or a principal character. So hopefully we won't mix up Basil, the American gentleman from Mississippi, with Basil, the British gentleman. :-)

Thank you for all this useful context!

Lori wrote: "We will be reading two books at the same time which each have a man named Basil as either the main or a principal character. So hopefully we won't mix up Basil, the American gentleman from Mississi..."

I noticed that too. It's not like it's a common name. I wonder if the British pronounce it Basil as in bat or Bahsil like the city in Switzerland and the Americans Baysil?

There are at least two novels where Henry James is the main character - The Master by Colm Tóibín and Author, Author by David Lodge. I wonder what he would have thought of that.

You can walk by the James home on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. It has a sweet little fence and is very quaint.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&r...

I'm reading through the introduction and can confirm that it contains many spoilers (but not sure if every version has an introduction, and if they're all the same - the B&N edition's intro is by Siri Hustvedt). Here is some interesting background from the intro about the James family as it relates to the book (and some background on the book itself):

The James family settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at one point. Henry James, Jr (the author), described the city as "arid and vacuous." He studied at Harvard for a year.

The James family followed progressive ideas. Henry James, Sr (the author's father) was an abolitionist and was friends with many transcendentalists, including Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller.

Two of Henry James, Jr.'s elder brothers went to school with some of Emerson's children, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's son. The two young men fought for the North in the Civil War, and one of them fought with the 54th regiment, the first regiment of Black troops. This book takes place 10-15 years after the end of the Civil War, and its effects permeate the story, especially in Basil Ransom's character.

Henry Sr was a disciple of Emanuel Swedenborg (whose writings we briefly saw in Sheridan Le Fanu's "Green Tea") and Francois-Marie-Charles Fourier.

We will see a Mesmeric healer in the book, and references to various types of spiritualism. Henry Jr wasn't a believer, but one of his brothers was. He wanted his widow to summon him through a seance after his death.

Henry Jr greatly admired Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a huge influence on his writing. They never met, though. Overall, however, Henry Jr seemed to consider British literature and culture superior. James also greatly admired the work of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), whose books are briefly mentioned in The Bostonians.

Here's another concept related to the book, since we'll see some examples of feminist women who live with other women (text is from Wikipedia):

Boston Marriage

A "Boston marriage" was, historically, the cohabitation of two wealthy women, independent of financial support from a man. The term is said to have been in use in New England in the late 19th/early 20th century. Some of these relationships were romantic in nature and might now be considered a lesbian relationship; others were not.

The fact of relatively formalized romantic friendships or life partnerships between women predates the term Boston marriage and there is a long record of it in England and other European countries. The term Boston marriage became associated with Henry James's The Bostonians (1886), a novel involving a long-term co-habiting relationship between two unmarried women, "new women", although James himself never used the term. James' sister Alice lived in such a relationship with Katherine Loring and was among his sources for the novel.

Some women in Boston marriages did so because they felt they had a better connection to women than to men. Some of these women lived together out of necessity; such women were generally financially independent due to family inheritance or career earnings. Women who chose to have a career (doctor, scientist, professor) created a new group of women, known as new women, who were not financially dependent upon men. Educated women with careers who wanted to live with other women were allowed a measure of social acceptance and freedom to arrange their own lives. They were usually feminists with shared values, involved in social and cultural causes. Such women were generally self-sufficient in their own lives, but gravitated to each other for support in an often disapproving, sexist, and sometimes hostile society.

Until the 1920s, these arrangements were widely regarded as natural and respectable. After the 1920s, women in such relationships were increasingly suspected of being in lesbian sexual relationships, so fewer single women chose to live together.