Biography

Henry James came from a remarkable New York City family: his father, an eccentric and independently wealthy man, undertook the education of all his children; his brother William would become one of America's most important philosophers; and his sister, Alice, was a perceptive diarist. In 1876 James moved to England, where he devoted himself to writing; his novels were often international in scope, exploring the comic or dramatic effects of an American in Europe or a European in America. James wrote short stories, plays, essays, and many classic novels, including The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1878), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Ambassadors (1903). For decades firmly established as one of America's major literary figures, James is revered as a critic, as a subtle psychological realist, and as an unsurpassed stylist and craftsman.

Explorations

One of the interesting quirks of Anglo-American Realism is that several of the canonical writers from this era (James, Clemens, Wharton, Howells) took up, at one time or another, the writing of ghost stories, tales with a supernatural aura. What would scare a realist? A close look at James's The Jolly Corner (1908) can suggest much about the aspirations and anxieties which informed James's career and the literary movement in which he participated.

1. In the opening pages of The Jolly Corner, James takes us into Spencer Brydon's mind as he tries to explain to himself, and to Alice Staverton, why he has come back to the United States after long residence abroad. What are his reasons? Does he discover, or acknowledge, other reasons at the end of the story? What might those be?

2. Describe the "ghost" which Brydon eventually encounters in his New York home. What are the physical differences between this ghost and himself? What implicitly are the psychological and moral differences? Why would an encounter like this cause Brydon to faint dead away?

3. Alice Staverton's closing line to Brydon is "And he isn't--no, he isn't you." What does Alice mean by that? Why would such an observation be both consoling and unsettling?

4. Standard descriptions of American realism, by practitioners during the Realist era, spoke of their work as seeking truth and as celebrating and exploring the nature of the modern self. What possibilities raised in The Jolly Corner would frighten an artist who had spent a career in the service of such values?

Other sites to consult:

• The Henry James Scholar's Guide to Web Sites. A comprehensive list of links to James e-texts, conferences, bulletin boards, works by and about James, and other online resources (maintained by Richard D. Hathaway, SUNY New Paltz).
• Online editions of The Henry James Review. Features contemporary scholarly, critical, and theoretical work, plus essays and reviews pertaining to James.
• Read three essays on "James and the Feminine" by noted James scholars. Part of the 1993 exhibit "Cher Maitre: The Other Sides of Henry James" at the Mercantile Library of New York.