Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Moment of Henry James
- 1 Men, Women, and the American Way
- 2 The James Family Theatricals
- 3 Henry James at Work
- 4 Henry James and the Invention of Novel Theory
- 5 Henry James and the Idea of Evil
- 6 Queer Henry In the Cage
- 7 The Unmentionable Subject in "The Pupil"
- 8 Realism, Culture, and the Place of the Literary: Henry James and The Bostonians
- 9 Lambert Strether's Excellent Adventure
- 10 James's Elusive Wings
- 11 Henry James's American Dream in The Golden Bowl
- 12 Affirming the Alien: The Pragmatist Pluralism of The American Scene
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- Index
- Series List
2 - The James Family Theatricals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Moment of Henry James
- 1 Men, Women, and the American Way
- 2 The James Family Theatricals
- 3 Henry James at Work
- 4 Henry James and the Invention of Novel Theory
- 5 Henry James and the Idea of Evil
- 6 Queer Henry In the Cage
- 7 The Unmentionable Subject in "The Pupil"
- 8 Realism, Culture, and the Place of the Literary: Henry James and The Bostonians
- 9 Lambert Strether's Excellent Adventure
- 10 James's Elusive Wings
- 11 Henry James's American Dream in The Golden Bowl
- 12 Affirming the Alien: The Pragmatist Pluralism of The American Scene
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- Index
- Series List
Summary
Within the last year [Henry] has published The Tragic Muse, brought out The American, and written a play, Mrs Vibert (which Hare has accepted) and his admirable comedy: combined with William's Psychology, not a bad show for one family! especially if I get myself dead, the hardest job of all.
The Diary of Alice James, 1890With that work [Howells's Hazard of New Fortunes], your tragic muse, and last but by no means least, my psychology, all appearing in it, the year 1890 will be known as the great epochal year in American literature.
Letter from William James to Henry James, 1890I like to think it open to me to establish speculative and imaginative connections.
Henry James, "Is There a Life after Death?", 1910He waited, Henry James, until 1890 to realize his dream of writing for the stage. While the desire to be a dramatist had haunted him “from the first,” James had for some reason stalled. Contemplating the years of “waiting, of obstruction,” he sensed a certain resistance in his delayed start, as if realizing that it is in the nature of desire to postpone its satisfaction: “It is strange nevertheless that I should never have done anything - and to a certain extent it is ominous. I wonder at times that the dream should not have faded away” (James, Complete Notebooks [hereafter cited as Notebooks], 226). The melodramatic excess of this statement is balanced against a contrasting version of events: “When I was younger [the drama] was really a very dear dream with me - but it has faded away with the mere increase of observation” (quoted in James, Complete Plays, 44).
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Henry James , pp. 40 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998