Philip Horne - Böcker

'You must paint her just like that ... as the Tragic Muse' Suggests one of James's characters to Nick Dormer, the young Englishman who, during the course of the novel, will courageously resist the glittering Parliamentary career desired for him by his family, in order to paint. His progress is counterpointed by the 'Tragic Muse' of the title, Miriam Rooth, one of James's most fierily beautiful creations, a great actress indifferent to social reputation, and triumphantly dedicated to her art. In portraying the conflict between art and 'the world' which is his novel's central idea, James engaged obliquely with current debates on the new aestheticism of Pater and Wilde and on the nature of the actor's performance. Through the living complexity of his protagonists he reveals how much, as Philip Horne puts it, 'to take art seriously as an end in itself ... is still a provocative course'.

James's correspondents included presidents and prime ministers, painters and great ladies, actresses and bishops, and the writers Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells and Edith Wharton. This fully-annotated selection from James's eloquent correspondence allows the writer to reveal himself and the fascinating world in which he lived. The letters provide a rich and fascinating source for James' views on his own works, on the literary craft, on sex, politics and friendship. Together they constitute, in Philip Horne's own words, James' 'real and best biography'.

An unsettling new collection of Henry James's best short stories exploring ghosts and the uncanny'There had been a moment when I believed I recognised, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep''I see ghosts everywhere', wrote Henry James, who retained a fascination with the supernatural and sensational throughout his writing career. This new collection brings together eight of James's tales exploring the uncanny, including his infamous ghost story, 'The Turn of the Screw', a work saturated with evil, in which a fraught governess becomes convinced that malicious spirits are menacing the children in her care. The other masterly works here include 'The Jolly Corner', 'Owen Wingrave' and further tales of visitations, premonitions, madness, grief and family secrets, where the living are just as mysterious and unknowable as the dead. With an introduction and notes by Susie BoytGeneral Editor Philip Horne

Regarded by many as Henry James's finest work, and a lucid tragedy exploring the distance between money and happiness, The Portrait of a Lady contains an introduction by Philip Horne in Penguin Classics.When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken. Beneath his veneer of civilized behaviour, Isabel discovers cruelty and a stifling darkness. In this portrait of a 'young woman affronting her destiny', Henry James created one of his most magnificent heroines, and a story of intense poignancy.This edition of The Portrait of a Lady, based on the earliest published copy of the novel, is the version read first and loved by most readers in James's lifetime. It also contains a chronology, further reading, notes and an introduction by Philip Horne.Henry James (1843-1916) son of a prominent theologian, and brother to the philosopher William James, was one of the most celebrated novelists of the fin-de-siècle. In addition to many short stories, plays, books of criticism, biography and autobiography, and much travel writing, he wrote some twenty novels. His novella Daisy Miller (1878) established him as a literary figure on both sides of the Atlantic, and his other novels in Penguin Classics include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Awkward Age (1899), The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904).If you enjoyed The Portrait of a Lady, you might like Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, also available in Penguin Classics.'Matchless, a grave description of one of life's great traumas, the passage from innocence to experience'Anita Brookner

At the height of his powers Henry James turned from the creation of new fiction to the `writing over' of his past works for the definitive New York Edition of his novels and tales. His anxious scrutiny of what he had written across his long career - up to thirty-six years before - led sometimes to rejection, but more often to a renewed imaginative intimacy with the creations of his old self through the intensive revision of his texts. In the first major study of the subject Philip Horne examines the revision of particular works, shedding new light on interpretative controversies (as with The Portrait of a Lady and Daisy Miller). He attends to questions of principle raised by the paradoxical processes of the reviser. Using much new material, this book tells the painful but impressive story of James's lifelong struggle for perfection, and illuminates his genius as a framer of sentences and a master of dramatic nuance. James's engagement with revision is connected with every other aspect of his achievement; it displays vividly and accurately his close experience of the life of writing.

A chilling collection of Henry James's finest ghost stories, now in a wonderful Clothbound Classics editionIn 'The Turn of the Screw', one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, a governess becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care. But are the children really in danger - and if so, from whom? The novella is accompanied here by several more of the very best of Henry James' short stories, including 'The Jolly Corner' and 'The Third Person', all of which explore human psychology through ghostly visitations and the uncanny.

The films of Thorold Dickinson (1903-1984), now being rediscovered, engage with major issues including national identity, the post-colonial world, and political violence – and they also show a rare mastery of style, a thrilling eroticism, a preoccupation with the psychology of betrayal. But the director of Gaslight, The Next of Kin and The Queen of Spades was also an editor, documentarist, trade unionist, film producer (for the British Army and the UN), pioneering academic and controversialist. His adventurous and truly global involvement in film took him to Paris in the heyday of silent cinema in the 1920s, to Stalin’s USSR in 1937, to the Spanish Civil War, to Africa, India, Israel and America.This book gives a lively, multi-angled account of Dickinson’s works, life and times, conveying a sense of his own voice and fascinating character. It includes a richly detailed introduction, a film-by-film discussion of Dickinson with Scorsese, vivid personal memoirs of the director, a dossier of Dickinson’s original writings and interviews from 1924 to 1973 (some never previously published), critical essays on all the feature films, and a ground-breaking reference section. The book draws on extensive archival research and close consultation with those who knew Dickinson well.Contributors include: Martin Scorsese, Gavin Millar, Lutz Becker, Charles Barr, Laura Marcus, Kevin Jackson, Kevin Gough-Yates, Ian Christie, Gregory Dart, Hillel Tryster, Janet Moat.