Henry James

15 April 1843 - 28 February 1916

Standard Name: James, Henry

HJ (who began publishing in 1871 and continued into the twentieth century) left his native USA to settle in England early in his writing career. Known for his extreme subtlety, verging at times on obscurity,

Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Sixth edition, Oxford University Press, 2000.

he was hugely influential as a novelist, short-story writer, and critic. His also wrote plays, which, however, were unsuccessful on stage.

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Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Literary responses	Ethel Wilson	Positive reviews praised EW 's masterful description of the B.C. interior. A reviewer in the Chicago Sunday Tribune wrote: Rarely in recent reading have I encountered an author who has transferred her love and understanding...
Literary responses	Elizabeth Inchbald	A Simple Story was praised by no less a modern authority than Q. D. Leavis , TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive. (8 September 1989): 964 and received a more recent accolade from Terry Castle as the most elegant English fiction...
Literary responses	Mary Augusta Ward	MAW 's meticulous character study and tragic love story is sometimes considered her best novel. It was positively received by George Meredith , Sir J. M. Barrie , and Henry James. James wrote to her...
Literary responses	Fanny Kemble	Henry James characterized these memoirs as an overflow of conversation. qtd. in Clinton, Catherine. Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars. Simon and Schuster, 2000. 229 He also recorded FK 's own reaction to the work's public acceptance: Her book . . . has been quite an immense success here...
Literary responses	Ella D'Arcy	H. G. Wells reviewed Monochromes along with volumes of stories by Henry Harland and by Henry James . Dismissing Harland as a mediocrity and James for his style (which he likened to thorns, brambles, and...
Literary responses	Mary Augusta Ward	James 's admiring response admitted his own irresistible urge to recast the novels of other people. He also opined to MAW that you had done nothing more homogeneous, nor more hanging and moving together. It...
Literary responses	Fanny Kemble	Henry James remarked on her achievement: To write one's first novel at the age of eighty is a thing which could have happened only to a woman who has done everything, all her life, just...
Literary responses	Isa Blagden	Henry James dismissed IB 's novels as the inevitable nice novel or two of the wandering English spinster. qtd. in West, Rebecca. Harriet Hume. Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1982. 446 IB 's texts have received scant critical attention, and the little which has been published frequently...
Literary responses	Rebecca Harding Davis	Waiting for the Verdict received mixed reviews. Henry James responded savagely in The Nation on 21 November 1867, assailing it for gloominess of tone and market-driven emotionalism of style. However, the literary editor of Lippincott's...
Literary responses	Frances Hodgson Burnett	A Fair Barbarian was said by one critic to rival Henry James 's Daisy Miller. Gerzina, Gretchen. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chatto and Windus, 2004. 101 Through One Administration was faulted by some for its risqué and suspiciously personal subject-matter, though the Saturday Review...
Literary responses	Penelope Lively	Fay Weldon calls this novel James ian . . . in its complexities and its carefulness. qtd. in Lively, Penelope. Heat Wave. HarperPerennial, 1997. back cover
Literary responses	Julia Constance Fletcher	Henry James , reviewing this novel, called the rootless expatriate Amenican the most beautiful and fascinating type in modern fiction. “The No Name Series”. Studies in the American Renaissance, No. 15, 1 Jan. 1991, pp. 375-02, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30227614. 385 Another reviewer praised it for magical descriptions, insight into moods and emotions, and a...
Literary responses	Frances Hodgson Burnett	The early Esmeralda was badly, but anonymously, reviewed by Henry James in the Pall Mall Gazette. Gerzina, Gretchen. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chatto and Windus, 2004. 208 That Man and I, reworked from part of In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim...
Literary responses	Mary Lavin	This volume brought ML critical acclaim. R. J. Thompson read it as establishing her position as one of the most artful and perceptive masters of the story form in our day. qtd. in “Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC. In Ireland, wrote the...
Literary responses	Rebecca Harding Davis	In her own time RHD 's writing was generally well received. But in a rather negative review of Waiting for the Verdict, Henry James (the most prominent writer of her generation) not only gave...

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