Henry James and His World

Henry James is often thought of as having lived a life of total absorption is his craft, a life without significant external events. But James was a man upon few experiences and observations were lost. After a restless transatlantic childhood and a brief residence in France, he settled in England, where he became a travelled and sociable writer. In the international theme - the theme of conflict between the European and American sensibilities - he found a world of quickened possibilities and heightened perceptions to which he gave lasting expression in his work. Professor Moore traces the drama of Henry James's developing consciousness and command. By relating many of James's best-known stories to the events or people upon whom the novelist drew for his fiction, he aims to enhance our appreciation both of the works themselves and their intent creator. Finally, he proposes that, for James, expatriation from America was not a withdrawal from the world to which he belonged but rather the affirmation of a world he claimed - and made his own - through imagination.