Jr. James, Henry – författare

This volume attempts to determine the early influence shared between William Dean Howells and Henry James by reconstructing and evaluating documentary evidence of their literary cross-fertilization. Of the 151 letters included in this volume -- most of the extant correspondence between the two men -- only half have been printed elsewhere. All items previously unpublished are letters by James. The selection represents each writer's most significant criticism of the other, providing a valuable tool for historically informed comprehension and appreciation of both men's work.

This 1981 book is a reissue of a selection of Henry James' literary criticism by Heinemann Educational Books in 1963. Few artists of any kind have applied to their work the degree of critical intelligence that James devoted to his, and the perfectionist care that he devoted to the practise of his own craft made him a great critic of the art of fiction in general. The essays included in this volume cover the entire span of James' career, from the essay on Whitman (1965) to The New Novel (1914). Of particular interest are the essays dealing with the great fiction writers of the nineteenth century: Dickens, George Eliot, Maupassant, Flaubert, Balzac and Zola. The book also includes by way of a preface F. R. Leavis' essay on James as a critic, in which Leavis analyses what he sees as the strengths of James' work in this field.

Of all James' travel writings, this volume holds the most pleasure for the reader -- as a warm, careful introduction to a beloved country, as a happy experience shared, and as one of the world's great examples of expository writing.