Series: Classics

The Portrait of a Lady

by Henry James

Published December 1947

Introduction by Fred B. Millett

Of the three late masterpieces that crown the extraordinary literary achievement of Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902) is at once the most personal and the most elemental. James drew on the memory of a beloved cousin who died young to create one of the three central characters, Milly Theale, an heiress with a short time to live and a passion for experiencing life to its fullest. To the creation of the other two, Merton Densher and the magnificent, predatory Kate Croy, who conspire in an act of deceit and betrayal, he brought a lifetime's distilled wisdom about the frailty of the human soul when it is trapped in the depths of need and desire. And he brought to the drama that unites these three characters, in the drawing rooms of London and on the storm-lit piazzas of Venice, a starkness and classical purity almost unprecedented in his work. Under its brilliant, coruscating surfaces, beyond the scrim of its marvelous rhetorical and psychological devices, The Wings of the Dove offers an unfettered vision of our civilization and its discontents. It represents a culmination of James's art and, as such, of the art of the novel itself.

Daisy Miller

by Henry James

Published 1 July 1978

"Daisy Miller" is a fascinating portrait of a young woman from Schenectady, New York, who, traveling in Europe, runs afoul of the socially pretentious American expatriate community in Rome. First published in 1878, the novella brought American novelist Henry James(1843-1916), then living in London, his first international success. Like many of James's early works, it portrays a venturesome American girl in the treacherous waters of European society - a theme that would culminate in his 1881 masterpiece, "The Portrait of a Lady."

On the surface, "Daisy Miller" unfolds a simple story of a young American girl's willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences. But throughout the narrative, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a tale rich in psychological and social insight. A vivid portrayal of Americans abroad and a telling encounter between the values of the Old and New Worlds, "Daisy Miller" is an ideal introduction to the work of one of America's greatest writers of fiction.

The Jolly Corner

by Henry James

Published May 1970

Can You Be Haunted By An Alternate Self? "The Jolly Corner" is a short story by Henry James published first in the magazine The English Review of December, 1908. One of James' most noted ghost stories, it describes the adventures of Spencer Brydon as he prowls the now-empty New York house where he grew up. He encounters a "sensation more complex than had ever before found itself consistent with sanity." Brydon returns to New York City after thirty-three years abroad. He has returned to "look at his 'property,'" two buildings, one his boyhood home on "the jolly corner." These properties have been the source of his income since the deaths of his family members.Spencer finds he is good at directing this renovation, despite never having done this work before, suggesting that his innate ability for business was hiding deep within him unused. Spencer rekindles a relationship with an old friend, Alice Staverton. He starts to wonder who he would be if he had stayed in the U.S...

The Aspern Papers

by Henry James

Published December 1956

One in a series of classic novels from Henry James.

Henry James, The Bostonians

by Henry James

Published 8 May 2013

An International Episode and Other Stories

by Henry James and S. Gorley Putt

Published 29 August 1985

A Landscape-painter and Other Tales

by Henry James

Published 22 February 1990

The Critical Muse

by Henry James

Published 26 May 1988

'The critic, in his conception, was not the narrow lawgiver or the rigid censor that he is often assumed to be; he was the student, the inquirer, the interpreter, the taker of notes, the active, restless commentator...' James's words on Sainte-Beuve could very easily be applied to himself. The pleasures of his own criticism - wit and urbanity, metaphorical artistry, his way of stalking and teasing out his subject - always lift his essays from the merely instructive to the delightful.