Literature / Writers Datebook: April 15
Brief biography of American writer and critic Henry James. He became a British citizen although he is still considered one of America's greatest writers and literary critics of the 19th and 20 centuries. He is best known for consciousness and morality themes.
Henry James (b. April 15, 1843 – d. February 28, 1916) is considered one of America's greatest writers. He is best known for the way he creates complex and detailed characters in his novels. He was greatly influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Honoré de Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, and Ivan Turgenev.
Early life
James was born in New York City into a wealthy and prominent family. His father Henry James Senior was a well-known theological writer and lecturer, his brother William, a pioneer psychologist and philosopher, and her sister Alice, a diarist. The family moved frequently, and he became a roving youth who lived in France, Germany, England, and Switzerland. He also met Turgenev and Flaubert in Europe.
At age 19 he enrolled in the Harvard Law School but preferred reading literature to studying law. Two years later, he published his first story, A Passionate Pilgrim, and became a brilliant reviewer and contributor for literary journals. Only in his 20s, he was considered to be one of the country's finest short-story writers.
Writing career
James travelled and settled in Europe (1875), the same year he wrote his first book Roderick Hudson. During his first years there he wrote novels that portrayed Americans living abroad in Europe. He was concerned with exploring the relationship between European and American cultures. The Portrait of a Lady (1881), one of his best stories from this period, is about a young American woman who visits England and Italy with her aunt. In the 1880s he began analysing social ills in novels such as The Bostonians and Princess Casamassima (1886), in which he probes the aspects of European political life. The final stage of James's writing was devoted to combining the previous two themes by analyzing morality questions through the experiences of individuals. It was in this period that James published his greatest novels: The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.
As brother of a philosopher William James, who coined the phrase "stream of consciousness", Henry James could also describe what was "underneath the surface of things" yet remain neutral by not taking sides.
Later Years
He made England his home primarily in London and Rye, Sussex. In 1915 he became a British citizen. Notably, at Rye, Sussex, James he became friends with HG Wells, the pioneer of science fiction and self-conscious reformer. The friendship turned sour when Wells attacked the Jamesian ethos in the novel Boon (1915).
In 1898, James moved to Rye House, Sussex where he wrote his last three novels. In 1916, the same year he died, he also received the Order of Merit. He was 72.
His works include novels, stories, plays and thousands of pages of literary criticism.
Photo credit:
Henry James. NNDB / Public Domain
Resources:
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh, 2002
(c) April 2009. Tel. Inspire Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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