The Cambridge Companion to Henry James

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James provides a critical introduction to James’s work. Throughout the major critical shifts of the last fifty years, and despite suspicions of the traditional high literary culture which was James’s milieu, he has retained a powerful hold on readers and critics alike. All essays are written at a level free from technical jargon, designed to promote accessibility to the study of James and his work.

• Much needed accompaniment to a widely studied but challenging writer • All essays newly commissioned for this Companion and are free from technical jargon • Includes all the latest in recent scholarship at a critical point in James’ criticism (cf Hugh Stevens chapter on ‘Queer Henry in the cage’) • Sets James’ achievement in a generic, historical, theoretical and formal context • James is currently in vogue following the filmisations of Portrait Of A Lady starring John Malkovich and Nicole Kidman; Washington Square with Albert Finney and Maggie Smith; and The Wings of a Dove with Helena Bonham-Carter and Linus Roach

Chronology; Introduction: the moment of Henry James Jonathan Freedman; 1. Men, women, and the American way Martha Banta; 2. The James’ family theatricals Frances Wilson; 3. Henry James: the question of our texts Philip Horne; 4. Henry James and the invention of novel theory Dorothy Hale; 5. Henry James and the idea of evil Robert Weisbuch; 6. Queer Henry in the cage Hugh Stevens; 7. The unmentionable subject in the pupil Millicent Bell; 8. Realism, culture, and the place of literary: Henry James and The Bostonians Sara Blair; 9. Lambert Strether’s excellent adventure Eric Haralson; 10. James’s elusive wings William Stowe; 11. Henry James’s American dream in The Golden Bowl Margery Sabin; 12. Affirming the alien: the pragmatist pluralism of the American scene Ross Posnock.