Henry James

"The Figure in the Carpet" is a short story published in 1896 in London, by American writer Henry James. The short story is usually referred to as a novella and is told in the first person. The narrator, whose name is never revealed, meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention within all the author's works.

This short novel is a black comedy about fame, manipulation, pretension, and surviving it all. The narrator, a reprehensible and seedy journalist, sets out to interview a minor author, and in his own quest for glory, turns the author into the celebrity of the day. The sudden and untimely death of the author, with his latest work unfinished, presents a troubling dilemma for the narrator, which he resolves with no more conscience than he had when he began his quest.

Two American families in Europe converge for different reasons in a discreet and economic pension located in Geneva. These two families, on the one hand, Mr. R cky, accompanied by his wife and daughter, he is a businessman whose prosperity has lived better times, and on the other hand Mrs. Church, who arrives with her daughter Aurora after have litigated in another Swiss pension for alleged economic abuse. Mrs. Church is seen to be a survivor, a determined and strong American woman who does not have a dollar and who goes from boarding house to boarding house in Europe with the sole intention of finding a rich husband for her lovely daughter ...

Madame de Mauves is a novella by Henry James. The story centers on the troubled marriage of a scrupulous American wife and a far from scrupulous French husband, and is told mostly from the point of view of a male friend of the wife. The tale reflects the intense interest James took in the "international theme," especially early in his career. One of the longest fictions he had yet attempted, the smoothly narrated story shows that James was rapidly maturing in style and technique.

What Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James. It tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible parents. When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess: the frumpy, somewhat-ridiculous but devoted Mrs. Wix.

The American Scene is a book of travel writing by Henry James about his trip through the United States in 1904-1905. James travelled the entire country and even made decent money from public lectures, usually to ladies' organizations that he made "pay me through the nose." The American Scene covers his trips up and down the Eastern seaboard, concentrating on New York City and New England. A second volume, which was to recount his experiences in the Midwest and West, never got written.

The Marriages by Henry James. This story is about the attitude of Adela who do not like the presence of Mrs. Churcley that will replace her mother positions who had died six months earlier. "When she knocked at his door late in the evening he was regularly not in his room. It was known in the house how much he was worried; he was horribly nervous about his ordeal. It was to begin on the 23rd of June, and his father was as worried as himself. The wedding had been arranged in relation to this; they wished poor Godfrey's fate settled first, though they felt the nuptials would be darkened if it shouldn't be settled right"

"The Altar of the Dead" is a short story by Henry James. Aging George Stransom holds sacred the memory of the great love of his life, Mary Antrim, who died before they could be married. One day Stransom happens to read of the death of Acton Hague, a former friend who had done him a terrible harm. Stransom starts to dwell on the many friends and acquaintances he is now losing to death. He begins to light candles at a side altar in a Catholic church, one for each of his Dead, except Hague.

The Pupil is a short story by Henry James, published in 1891. It is the emotional story of a precocious young boy growing up in a mendacious and dishonorable family. He befriends his tutor, who is the only adult in his life that he can trust. James presents their relationship with sympathy and insight, and the story reaches what some would consider the status of classical tragedy.

The tale opens in Boston and New England in the middle of the 19th century, and describes the experiences of two European siblings shifting from the old to the new world. The two protagonists are Eugenia M nster and Felix Young, who since their early childhood have lived in Europe, moving from France to Italy and from Spain to Germany. In this last place, Eugenia entered into a Morganatic marriage with Prince Adolf of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein, the younger brother of the reigning prince who is now being urged by his family to dissolve the marriage for political reasons.

The Tragic Muse is a novel by Henry James. Nick Dormer wants to pursue a career in painting instead of his family's traditional role in British politics. This upsets his family and particularly his lady friend, Julia Dallow, a beautiful but demanding woman deeply involved in political campaigns. But Nick's old Oxford friend Gabriel Nash encourages him to follow his desire to become an artist. Despite his misgivings Nick goes through an election campaign, supported by Julia, and wins a seat in Parliament. He proposes marriage to Julia but they agree to wait.

Full text. It is Paris sometime after the Franco-Prussian War. A French poet and a German composer come to admire one another's work and decide to collaborate on an opera. There are costs to pay.

Full text. During a group excursion to a picnic, Wilmerding quite innocently goes for a walk with Veronica, the eldest daughter of Mrs Goldie. They are missing from the main group for some time. But in the nineteenth century the social conventions for contact between men and women were so tightly controlled that for a single woman to be alone with a single man - out of any supervision by a chaperone, a family friend, or any other third party - was considered to be a potential blot upon her reputation.

Roderick Hudson is a novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1875. Rowland Mallet, a wealthy Bostonian bachelor and art connoisseur, visits his cousin Cecilia in Northampton, Massachusetts, before leaving for Europe. There he sees a Grecian figure he thinks is a remarkable work of art. Cecilia introduces him to the local sculptor, Roderick Hudson, a young law student who sculpts in his spare time. He offers to advance Roderick a sum of money against future works which will allow Roderick to join him in moving to Italy for two years...

Having reviewed Hugh Vereker's latest fiction in The Middle, a literary weekly (this a result of the kind offices of his friend George Corvick), the nameless narrator is invited to a country-house weekend, during which he encounters Vereker. The novelist reads the narrator's notice and comments derisively on it, only to relent when he learns the identity of the author. In a gesture of compensation (one supposes), Vereker confides to the narrator that his fictions are all linked by a single idea or scheme that no critic has ever noticed but that is the very secret of all of his work. This is the famous "figure in the carpet" of the story's title, and it is what Vereker sets the narrator to discover. On his return to London, the narrator sets about his work of investigation and analysis, to no avail. He confides his secret to Corvick, who in turn (and with the help of Gwendolen Erme, herself a novelist) pursues the same goal of discovering the elusive design in Vereker's writings. Baffled and unsuccessful, Corvick departs for India, ostensibly on a journalistic assignment, but (one learns later) in actuality with the intention of distancing himself from the immediate engagement with Vereker's books, the better to discover their secret. Corvick succeeds, or so he asserts, as a cable from Bombay to Miss Erme informs her that he has discovered the "general intention" in Vereker. Corvick rushes to visit Vereker in Rapallo, Italy, where (once again the news is cabled to London) Vereker confirms that Corvick has indeed stumbled onto the secret of the fiction. Corvick immediately proposes a long, definitive piece on Vereker...

A young writer, Paul Overt, who meets Henry St. George, a famous novelist Overt admires. During that time, Overt also meets and falls in love with Marian Fancourt, a young woman who admires both St. George's and Overt's work. During their meetings, St. George, who is married, advises Overt against getting married and having children, arguing that a wife and children will be the death of Overt's creativity and career. Overt then takes an extended vacation in which he considers St. George's advice. When he returns, he learns that St. George's wife had died, and that St. George had taken Marian Fancourt as his wife.

The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James provides, for the first time, a scholarly edition of a major writer whose work continues to be read, quoted, adapted and studied. The Jolly Corner and Other Tales, 1903–1910 includes the final ten stories James wrote. Many involve satirical critiques of an increasingly narcissistic, acquisitive society - from 'The Papers', with its attack on celebrity culture, to 'The Birthplace', offering a sardonic view of the Shakespeare industry, and 'A Round of Visits', which conducts a horrified tour through selfishness and swindling in early twentieth-century New York. The title story itself was in James's own view 'a miraculous masterpiece in the line of the fantastic-gruesome, the supernatural-thrilling … the best thing of this sort I've ever done'. With its extensive textual history and wide-ranging notes, this volume will interest not only James scholars, but all students of early twentieth-century Anglo-American literature and culture.