The Catholic Side of Henry James

The Catholic Side of Henry James is the first book to reveal the profound Catholic imagery in James’s work. Edwin Fussell argues that James, though not a ‘card-carrying’ Catholic, was a ‘fellow-travelling’ Catholic of a certain literary type. Fussell is not trying to turn James into a closet Catholic but is, rather, intent on questioning conventional critical assumptions about James’s unquestioned secularity. He contends that the writer’s career began with narratives of Catholic conversion and ended with his masterpiece of Catholic eccentricity and alienation, The Golden Bowl. With his enormously detailed knowledge of James’s novels, tales, letters, and journals, Fussell is able to convincingly demonstrate the extent of the writer\'s involvement with the ideas of Catholicism.

• Displays enormous detailed knowledge of Jame’s novels • The first work to reveal the profound Catholic imagery in James’s • Henry James always sells

Preface; Calendar: Chief Items of Catholic Interest in Henry James; Documentation; Part I. Bibliographical Leads, Historical Considerations: Part II. Representing Catholicity: 1. The Protestant Base; 2. Liberalism; 3. The Picturesque; 4. The question of religious audience; 5. Sacred seculars: the tales; 6. Sacred seculars: letters and notebooks; 7. Death and literary form; Part III. The Narratives of Catholic Conversion: 1. Watch and Ward (1871); 2. Italian Sketches and Italian Tales (1870–75); 3. Roderick Hudson (1875); 4. The American (1876–77); 5. Attenuations: The Reverberator (1888); 6. Supersubtlety one: What Maisie Knew (1897); Supersubtlety two: The Turn of the Screw (1898); Part IV. Pas de Quatre: 1. Catholicity Neat: ‘Gabrielle de Bergerac’ (1869); 2. Secularizing catholicity: The Altar of the Dead (1895); 3. Protestantizing catholicity: The Great Good Place (1900); 4. Satirizing secularity: The Birthplace (1903); Part V. The Catholic Menage as Literary Space: 1. De Grey: A Romance (1868); 2. Guy Domville (1895); 3. The Golden Bowl (1904) 4. The Crown of His Career; Part VI. Prove That I\'m Not! - Toward the Impossibility of Interpretation: Notes; Index.