Henry James (1843-1916)

A selective list of literary criticism for Henry James, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages.

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Introduction & Lighter Reading

"A Mistake to Misunderstand." An 1887 review of Henry James from a British publication (the Guardian) is brief and snippy: "Unfortunately for Mr James, his great predecessors confined themselves almost entirely to their own people, whom they understood, and Mr James has tried English people, whom he does not understand."

Beach, Joseph Warren. "Henry James." Older (1907-1921) criticism on Henry James, includes the following sections: The Question of James's Americanism; His Passion for "Europe"; Americans in His Stories; Transcendentalism; Parentage and Education; Newport, Boston, Cambridge; Residence Abroad; Miscellaneous Writings; Collected Stories; Earlier Novels; Short Stories; Later Novels; Peculiarity of the James Method; James and [Walter] Pater; American Faith and European Culture. The Cambridge History of Literature.

Van Doren, Carl. "Henry James." Older (1921) criticism on Henry James, from The American Novel.

Campbell, Kate. "Henry James." A substantial introduction to Henry James. Literary Encyclopedia 25 June, 2002 [subscription service].

Literary Criticism

Alvarez Amoros, Jose Antonio. "Relativism and the Expression of Value Judgments in Henry James's 'The Next Time.'" Studies in Short Fiction Summer 1997.

Bertonneau, Thomas F. "'The Mysteries of Mimicry': Sublimity and Morality in The Golden Bowl." Anthropoetics 4, 2 (1998/1999).

Bertonneau, Thomas F. "Like Hypatia before the Mob: Desire, Resentment, and Sacrifice in The Bostonians (An Anthropoetics)." Anthropoetics 1, 1 (1995).

Britzolakis, Christina. "Technologies of vision in Henry James's What Maisie Knew." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 34, 3 (Summer 2001) [first page of article only].

Buelens, Gert. "Metaphor, Metonymy, and Ethics in The Portrait of a Lady." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Cavalier, Philip Acree. "Henry James’s Mathematics." On mathematical ideas in two of James's early novels, The American and Washington Square. MMLA 2002. Henry James Society.

De Biasio, Anna. "The Copies Outstrip the 'Originals': Artistic Representations from The Marble Faun to The Wings of the Dove" [and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun]. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Flatley, Jonathan. "Reading into Henry James" [on The Turn of the Screw]. Criticism Winter 2004.

Follini, Tamara L. "Henry James and the Spaces of 'Silent-Speaking Words.'" About James as a writer of letters, and "the epistolary act." ALA 2003. Henry James Society.

Frølund, Gro. "Seven Golden Bowls Full of the Wrath of God." Power and authority in The Golden Bowl. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Gooder, R. D. "The American Scene, or Paradise Lost." Cambridge Quarterly 37, 1 (2008) [first page of article only].

Gordon, Lyndall. A review of A Private Life of Henry James: Two Women and His Art (biography, 1999). The first chapter is also available online. NYTimes [requires registration].

Gunter, Susan. "The American and 'Le Roman policier.'" On the genre of The American, and whether it can be considered a detective novel. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Hadley, Tessa Jane. "French Words in The Ambassadors." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Haralson, Eric. A review of Henry James and Queer Modernity (Cambridge UP 2003). Reviewed by Lisa Tyler in Hemingway Review, Fall 2004 [Questia, subscription service].

Hays, Peter L. "Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and James's The Ambassadors." Hemingway Review 22 (Spring 2003) [Questia subscription service].

Jöttkandt, Sigi. "Hysteria, Metaphor and the Ethics of Desire in The Wings of the Dove." On social and ethical approaches to The Wings of the Dove. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Klein, Marcus. "Convention and Chaos in The Turn of the Screw." Hudson Review 59, 4 (Winter 2007) [first page of article only].

Litvak, Joseph. Caught in the Act: Theatricality in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel (U of California P 1992). Litvak contends that private experience in Henry James "is a rigorous enactment of a public script that constructs normative gender and class identities." James is discussed in the chapters "Making a Scene" and "Actress, Monster, Novelist." Complete book length study is open access from the California Digital Library.

McFadden, George. "On Rediscovering Henry James" [The Bostonians]. TriQuarterly 107-108 (Winter-Summer 2000).

Minter, David. A Cultural History of the American Novel: Henry James to William Faulkner (Cambridge UP 1996). Publisher's page, introduction is available there.

Mitchell, Lee. "'Begun to Show for Conscious Things': Objects, Setting and the Construction of Character in Henry James." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Miyabe, Kyoko. "Milly Theale and the Two Paintings in The Wings of the Dove." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Nelson, Michelle D. "Watch and Ward: James's fantasy of Omnipotence." On James's first novel, Watch and Ward (1871). Style Fall 1995.

O'Donnell, Heather. "Henry's James." On James's struggle to preserve a secure sense of his private identity and of himself as an American during his 1904 visit to the United States, in the midst of wide-ranging discussion of him in the American press. MLA 2002. Henry James Society.

Posnock, Ross. A review of The Trial of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of Modernity (Oxford UP 1991). Reviewed by John Abromeit, online journal.

Priest, Ann-Marie. "Risking the Cracks: The Mystic Self in Henry James's The Golden Bowl." Developing Leon Edel's notion of the "vampire theme" in James, Priest contends that "in The Golden Bowl, the idea of vampiric possession is transformed into what I have called the 'mystic self' through a reworking of the very basis of identity." Twentieth Century Literature 1999.

Priest, Ann-Marie. "'In the Mystic Circle': The Space of the Unspeakable in Henry James's The Sacred Fount." Style Fall 2000.

Rowe, Joyce A. "'Murder, What a Lovely Voice!': Sex, Speech, and the Public/Private Problem in The Bostonians." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 40, 2 (Summer 1998).

Salmon, Richard. Henry James and the Culture of Publicity (Cambridge UP 1997). On the relationship between the writings of Henry James and the historical formation of mass culture through publicity. A review by Rory Drummond in The Henry James Review 22, 3 (Fall 2001) [first page of article only].

Scheiber, Andrew J. "Embedded Narratives of Science and Culture in James's Daisy Miller." College Literature 21, 2 (1994).

Schoenbach, Lisi. "A Jamesian State: The American Scene and 'the Working of Democratic Institutions.'" Henry James Review 30, 2 (2009) [abstract only].

Scudder, Horace Elisha. "The Bostonians, by Henry James." A classic review, from the Atlantic Monthly 1886.

Shaheen, Aaron. "'The Social Dusk of that Mysterious Democracy': Race, Sexology, and the New Woman in Henry James's The Bostonians." American Transcendental Quarterly 19, 4 (Dec. 2005).

Simon, Linda. "The Empowered Physician: William Wilberforce Baldwin and 19th Century Medical Therapeutics." On Sir Luke, the physician in The Wings of the Dove, and his real life model. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Thomas, Brook. American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract (U of California P 1997). "Thomas investigates a host of issues at the forefront of public debate in the nineteenth century: race and the meaning of equality, miscegenation, marriage, labor unrest, economic transformation, and changes in notions of human agency and subjectivity." Includes a chapter on James, "Henry James and the Construction of Privacy." An open access, book length study, from California Digital Library.

Tintner, Adeline, ed. A review of Henry James and the Lust of the Eyes: Thirteen Artists in His Work. Reviewed in Studies in Short Fiction, Summer 1994, by James W. Gargano.

Tredy, Dennis; Annick Duperray; Adrian Harding, eds. Henry James's Europe: Heritage and Transfer (Open Book Publishers 2011). "As an American author who chose to live in Europe, Henry James frequently wrote about cultural differences between the Old and New World. The plight of bewildered Americans adrift on a sea of European sophistication became a regular theme in his fiction. This collection of twenty-four papers from some of the world's leading James scholars offers a comprehensive picture of the author's cross-cultural aesthetics. It provides detailed analyses of James's perception of Europe — of its people and places, its history and culture, its artists and thinkers, its aesthetics and its ethics — which ultimately lead to a profound reevaluation of his writing." The complete book is available open access through Google, or for purchase.

Vacca, V. John. "The Art of Memory in James's 'The Tone of Time.'" Studies in Short Fiction Summer 1998.

Vaux, Molly. "Vindication against Misreading: The Golden Bowl, The American Scene, and the New York Edition." MLA 2002. Henry James Society.

Wellek, Rene. "Henry James's Literary Theory and Criticism." An influential literary critic evaluates Henry James as a literary critic and theorist. Wellek begins, "There is an extreme divergence of opinions, even among presumably sympathetic critics, about the stature of Henry James as a critic." American Literature 30, 3 (1958) [first page of article only].

Wesley, Marilyn C. "The Remembered Future: Neuro-cognitive Identity in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw." College Literature 2004.

Westover, Jeff. "Handing Over Power in James's What Maisie Knew." Style Summer 1994.

Wilson, Raymond J., III. "The Possibility of Realism: 'The Figure in the Carpet' and Hawthorne's Intertext" [and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter] The Henry James Review 16, 2 (Spring 1995) [abstract only].

Zacharias, Greg. Henry James and the Assumption of Family Responsibility" [biographical]. ALA 2003. Henry James Society.

Film & Performance

Alleva, Richard. A film review, "Henry James made carnal: Wings of the Dove." Commonweal 19 Dec. 1997.

Alvarez, Maria Antonia. "The Breach Between Henry James's Novels and Films." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Dapkus, Jeanne R. "Sloughing off the burdens: Ada's and Isabel's parallel/antithetical quests for self-actualization in Jane Campion's film The Piano and Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady." Literature Film Quarterly 1997.

Eaton, Mark A. "Miramax, Merchant-Ivory, and the New Nobrow Culture: Niche Marketing The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl." Says Eaton, "Given Henry James’s own anxiety about mass publics, it is nonetheless interesting to consider how the author would have responded to the current cinematic revival of his novels." Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Frischkorn, Craig. "Frank Lloyd's Berkeley Square (1933): Re-adapting Henry James's The Sense of the Past." "Director Frank Lloyd's romantic fantasy film Berkeley Square (Fox, 1933) holds a strange but nearly forgotten place in cinema and literary history: It is the first film based on a work by Henry James." 2000.

Halliwell, Michael. "The Masque of Janus: Douglas Moore's Operatic Version of The Wings of the Dove." On dramatizing Henry James. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Newell, Kate. "Washington Square's 'Virus of Suggestion': Source Texts, Intertexts, and Adaptations." Literature Film Quarterly 2006.

Raw, Laurence. "Reconstructing Henry James: The Heiress (1949)." On filming James's novel. Literature Film Quarterly 2002.

Rosenberg, Victoria Hammerling. "The Sheltering Wings of the Narrative in The Wings of the Dove." On rhetorical approaches to The Wings of the Dove. Henry James Today, Paris 2002. Henry James Society.

Sorensen, Sue. "'Damnable feminization'?: The Merchant Ivory film adaptation of Henry James's The Bostonians." Literature Film Quarterly 1997.

Web Sites

The Henry James Society provides full text of selected scholarly papers from American Literature Association and Modern Language Association conferences.

Web site of the Henry James Review, a peer-reviewed and password controlled journal. A sample issue is available.

A scholar's reference web site on Henry James, catalogues internet sources of information for the student of James. Created by Richard D. Hathaway, Professor Emeritus of English, SUNY New Paltz.

Issues from the Atlantic Monthly magazine from 1857-1901 can be searched at this site provided by Cornell U. A patient researcher will find articles by and about Henry James, George Eliot, and others.

Calendar of the Letters of Henry James. U of Nebraska Press. The site provides access to a database of all known letters written by Henry James and brief biographical information on the recipients.

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