Book 1

The Altar of the Dead

by Henry James

Published 1 January 2004
He had a mortal dislike, poor Stransom, to lean anniversaries, and loved them still less when they made a pretence of a figure. Celebrations and suppressions were equally painful to him, and but one of the former found a place in his life. He had kept each year in his own fashion the date of Mary Antrim's death. It would be more to the point perhaps to say that this occasion kept HIM: it kept him at least effectually from doing anything else.

Book 4

The Beast in the Jungle

by Henry James

Published 1 January 2004
'Something or other lay in wait for him, amid the twists and turns of the months and the years, like a crouching beast in the jungle.' Henry James' devastating and profoundly moving novella is the story of John Marcher, a man who, for as long as he can remember, has been obsessed by the feeling that some life-changing - even catastrophic - event lies in wait for him like a jungle animal. Then the tragic day arrives on which the terrible true nature of the beast is revealed.

Book 6

The Figure in the Carpet

by Henry James

Published 8 August 2000
I had done a few things and earned a few pence - I had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a service. He had done more things than I, and earned more pence, though there were chances for cleverness I thought he sometimes missed.