Henry James: A Very Short Introduction

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 are Washington Square, The Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, and The 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.