Writing the Self:
Henry James and America
Peter Collister
978 1 85196 871 8: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 551 9
This exciting and original monograph re-evaluates the final decade of Henry James’s creative life. In 1904-5 the elderly expatriate made an extensive tour of North America. Through close literary analysis of his later writing, Peter Collister recovers James’s American identity.
The experience both dismayed and liberated James. Collister examines the narrative of The American Scene, the autobiographical writing, a number of short stories and two fascinating incomplete novels: works which offer contrasting notations of the self. A revised version of the novelist emerges, accommodated within national, familial and personal histories.
Sample pages
Readership
Literature, American Studies, Queer Theory
Contents
1 Letting Yourself Go: James Arrives in Twentieth-Century America
2 Surrendering to the Messages of New York
3 Boston and Cambridge: Initiations from the Past
4 Asking ‘as few questions as possible’ in Arcadian New England
5 Hearing the Voices of the South
6 ‘Unwritten history’: The Romance of James’s Civil War Stories
7 ‘Doing something’ for the Soldiers of the Civil War
8 Life-Writing for the Man of Letters
9 ‘An influence beyond my notation’: The Self-Reflexive Figures of ‘The Jolly Corner’
10 Opening Doors into The Sense of the Past
11 ‘A Round of Visits’: Effects Achieved ‘without the aid of the ladies’
12 Waking up to ‘some pretty big things’ in The Ivory Tower
Reviews
'A refreshing view into James's work, punctuated throughout with piquant analysis and insight. The notes and bibliography are complete and exacting. Summing Up: Highly recommended'
– CHOICE
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