Henry James

 

Henry James
b. April 15, 1843 - d. February 28, 1916

Henry James, an American writer, whose father Henry James Sr. was a writer whose works’ was theologian in nature; while his brother William was a psychologist. The desire to explore a psychological narrative in his stories rubbed off on Henry as his works explores marital interplay, and the mental distresses of one's social state. However, collectively all his works were transfixed on Trans-Atlantic culture, as he wrote about the New World. A place where he was born and raised.   In 1875, at the age of 32 Henry moved to Europe and began his career as a novelist publishing his first book titled Roderick Hudson in 1876, Originally published as a serial in the Atlantic Monthly (in 1875), the adaptations can be collected in 3 volumes  as a 482 page novel.

Many of Henry James' finest short stories are about writers and artists; others, most notably The 1898 novel Turn of the Screw - subtly terrifying ghost stories has James pegged as a psychologist of the reflective and conscious mind.  James preferred characters with the capacity to be "finely aware" of their predicaments and "richly responsible".  When he wrote The American (1877) his second serial which ran from 1876 to 1877 at the Atlantic Monthly (in Boston)  that story was more puritan conscious, the next century his writing style was considered to be  more elaborate as he focused his attentions to the leisurely class. Critics perceived that his concern with the leisurely class was more of him reflecting his awareness of the decadence of an acquisitive society.  Henry James received honorary degrees from Oxford and Harvard and was the recipient of the Order of Merit. Late in life he was nominated 3 times for a Nobel peace prize in literature; as he eventually settled in England and became a British citizen in 1915.

To only die a year later in his English home from pneumonia, in 1916.

              His Note Worthy Works:

            Roderick Hudson (1875)

            The American (1877)

            Daisy Miller (1878)

            Washington Square (1880)

            The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

            The Bostonians (1886)

            The Turn of the Screw (1898)

            Wings of the Dove (1902)

            The Beast in the Jungle (1903)

            The Ambassadors (1903)

            The Golden Bowl (1904)

Many of Henry James' noteworthy works have been adapted as either of theatrical/ Broadway play or BBC televised broadcast, or a combination of both.  As listed many of his works has been made into a feature length movies and were given theatrical releases. With big modern day names attached to those projects, like Merchant Ivory, Peter Bogdanovich, and Ian Softley to direct.  The Ambassadors was never adapted into a movie, but was a main source of inspiration for the writing of the Talented Mr. Ripley.