Our Henry James in Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture

Our Henry James in Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture addresses the interesting revival of Henry Jamess works in Anglo-American film adaptations and contemporary fiction from the 1960s to the present. Jamess fiction is generally considered difficult and part of high culture, more appropriate for classroom study than popular appreciation. However, this volume focuses on the adaptation of his novels into films, challenging us to understand Jamess popular reputation today on both sides of the Atlantic. The book offers two explanations for his persistent influence: Jamess literary ambiguity and his reliance on popular culture. Part I: His Times considers Jamess reliance on sentimental literature and theatrical melodrama in Daisy Miller, Guy Domville, The Awkward Age, and several of his lesser known short stories. Part II: Our Times focuses on how Jamess considerations of changing gender roles and sexual identities have influenced Hollywood representations of emancipated women in Hitchcocks Rear Window and Peter Bogdanovichs The Last Picture Show, among others. Recent fiction by authors including James Baldwin and Leslie Marmon Silko also treat Jamesian notions of gender and sexuality while considering his part in contemporary debates about globalization and cosmopolitanism. Both a study of Jamess works and a broad range of contemporary film and fiction, Our Henry James in Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture demonstrates the continuing relevance of Henry James to our multimedia, interdisciplinary, globalized culture.