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Complete Stories 1898–1910
“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. The rest is the madness of art.” These words, spoken by a dying novelist in “The Middle Years,” sum up Henry James’s credo as a writer. In more than one hundred stories, ranging from brief anecdotes to richly developed novellas, James displayed the unwavering intensity of his aesthetic vision—and he did so with an astonishing variety of invention. The Library of America makes this body of writing available in its entirety in a new, authoritative edition of James’s world-famous stories, complete in five volumes.
The thirty-one stories presented here are the culmination of James’s glorious final period. Among them are the extraordinary fantasies “The Great Good Place” and “The Jolly Corner,” in which supernatural motifs are used hauntingly to express undercurrents of yearning and dislocation; “Julia Bride,” a character portrait akin to “Daisy Miller,” in which a young American woman experiences the social pleasures and vicissitudes of the marriage market; “Crapy Cornelia,” a story whose sense of the compelling power of nostalgic memory owes much to James’s 1904 return visit to New York City; “The Birthplace,” a comic tale about the commercialization of genius that has lost none of its satiric edge; “The Tree of Knowledge,” a sly dissection of the family life of a pampered sculptor; “The Beast in the Jungle,” one of James’s masterpieces, the harrowing account of a man’s confrontation with his own lost opportunities that has been seen as foreshadowing many of the dominant themes of 20th-century literature; and “A Round of Visits,” James’s last story, about the need to confide and the limits of sympathy.
The thirty-one stories presented here are the culmination of James’s glorious final period. Among them are the extraordinary fantasies “The Great Good Place” and “The Jolly Corner,” in which supernatural motifs are used hauntingly to express undercurrents of yearning and dislocation; “Julia Bride,” a character portrait akin to “Daisy Miller,” in which a young American woman experiences the social pleasures and vicissitudes of the marriage market; “Crapy Cornelia,” a story whose sense of the compelling power of nostalgic memory owes much to James’s 1904 return visit to New York City; “The Birthplace,” a comic tale about the commercialization of genius that has lost none of its satiric edge; “The Tree of Knowledge,” a sly dissection of the family life of a pampered sculptor; “The Beast in the Jungle,” one of James’s masterpieces, the harrowing account of a man’s confrontation with his own lost opportunities that has been seen as foreshadowing many of the dominant themes of 20th-century literature; and “A Round of Visits,” James’s last story, about the need to confide and the limits of sympathy.
946 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Henry James
4,561 books3,953 followersHenry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 30, 2011
These late stories from Henry James take you into a whole other world, far removed from the day-to-day realities of 21st century American life. Hemingway must have hated them--filled with complex sentences that you sometimes have to read three or four times just to underrstand what James is trying to say, and not a single bull-fighter or gun-runner in almost a thousand pages (although there is an old man by the sea in "The Bench of Desolation," one of my favorite stories in the book). But the linguistic complexity matches the psychological depth and subtlety of his characters, and there is a shimmering beauty to many of these stories that very few writers, living or dead, can match. Not an "easy read" by any stretch of the imagination, but then the best stuff rarely is.
March 21, 2018
Let's just say this - every word of every story in this book passed through my retina into my brain. What happened after that nobody knows. Sometimes it cohered, sometimes beautifully. Other times, like the last story I read last night, I was as amazed as the main character when the person he just talked to shot himself in the next room. I had no idea what was going on and Henry definitely didn't use the Chekhov gun dictum (or else it got lost between my retina and brain...)
July 11, 2024
most composed when H James was dictating to a typist so strong quasi-proto-Modernist s-o-c style. Favorites are The Velvet Glove, The Story in It, The Third Person
May 7, 2016
As I've read along in James's stories and novels I've been impressed by his tremendous talent and his great intellectual and artistic faculties. Overall (with the caveat that I still have 2 volumes of his complete novels to read) I find that James is most consistently brilliant when writing in shorter forms than in longer ones. His stories were most brilliant and stimulating during the 1880s and 1890s; even so, his work overall displays some unevenness of quality (which I think is to be expected of a writer with such a tremendous output of work over a 50-year career).
This final volume of stories starts out well, but the overall quality of the stories begins to decline around 1903 and, by the end, seemed to exude a sense of weariness with the form on the part of James (though maybe I'm projecting a little). There are two undeniable classics in this book, both of fairly late composition: "The Beast in the Jungle" and "The Jolly Corner." There are also several very good "gems" among the collection, including "The Real Right Thing"The Third Person," and "The Beldonald Holbein." Many of the stories, however, are flawed in either conception or in workmanship, but readable enough for the enthusiast.
This final volume of stories starts out well, but the overall quality of the stories begins to decline around 1903 and, by the end, seemed to exude a sense of weariness with the form on the part of James (though maybe I'm projecting a little). There are two undeniable classics in this book, both of fairly late composition: "The Beast in the Jungle" and "The Jolly Corner." There are also several very good "gems" among the collection, including "The Real Right Thing"The Third Person," and "The Beldonald Holbein." Many of the stories, however, are flawed in either conception or in workmanship, but readable enough for the enthusiast.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews