united states

Most of us discover Henry James in an English or American Literature class. I don’t think that I appreciated Henry James’ stories a student. He required too much attention from me as a reader. Now I continuously marvel at the two things that make him such a joy to read… 1. He writes so well. He has to be read slowly; every word counts; every sentence leads inevitability to the next; every paragraph is complete, and 2. He has so much to say. Each story is unique. Unlike many lesser writers, Henry James never repeats himself. He never wastes his talent.

A previous reviewer states that some of these stories are amateurish. I fail to see that. It was such a pleasure to read even his first story, A Tragedy of Error, which was published unsigned. Its main characters are a woman and her lover. The woman’s long absent husband is about to return, and they are about to be discovered. In just 22 pages, we can feel their fear of discovery and their evil as the lovers plot the husband’s murder.

In comparison, The Madonna of the Future, is a serene story set in Florence, Italy. It is told in the first person singular, with the narrator presented as an observer until close to the end. He encounters a painter whose masterpiece is much talked about but not seen. He quietly befriends Theobald, the painter, and through him meets the model for the Madonna, Serafina. Unintentionally, the narrator is a catalyst for the final actions of Theobald. The ending is compassionate, but as much of a surprise as that in A Tragedy of Error.

Other stories include sweet characters that turn out to be manipulative gold diggers, spoiled children who control loving parents, and polite fiends. Many of these characters have secrets that need to be disclosed to the reader; some are just romantic. Some characters behave well; many do not. James writes mostly of the upper classes, excessively polite, judgmental, repressed, and full of secrets.

This volume contains his earliest stories. I’ve never read a review that holds any of these stories to be a masterpiece. But James is such a brilliant writer that any of his work is worth the time to read. I highly recommend this volume as a start.

I received a copy of this volume unexpectedly. It crossed my path as if it were inserting itself in my life, so I felt duty-bound to work my way through it. I confess to a prejudice against James' work. During graduate school, one of my seminars required a close reading of Portrait of a Lady, and I found the entire experience unpleasant in the extreme. At the time, I thought that James was a snob, an elitist, and a reactionary. Try as I might, I could not develop an interest in idle upper-class characters who spend their time forming constant intrigues.

Thus, I approached this volume with a bit of trepidation, with a feeling that this was something I had to do. It reminded me somewhat how I felt in certain courses in graduate school when the professor would do all in his (or her) power to make sure that literature was more a burden than a joy. I was surprised by how much I liked most of the stories I read. There is an element of universality in many of James' stories, and they did not seem as dated as I was expecting. Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was a ghost tale or two, as well as a story about people trying to outdo a seer's prophecy. One of the most unusual bases for a love story has to be James' tale of a couple who meet when the man accidentally shoots and kills the woman's sickly child.

Some of James' descriptions are wonderful, and some of the characters memorable. For all that, about two-thirds of the way through the more than 900 pages of this volume, I simply could not read any more. I felt considerable relief when I placed the volume inside its dust cover and found it a nice place to rest in my library. I do not imagine the pages will see the light of day for quite some time.

Even after reading most of this volume, I am not a fan of James' work. He is undoubtedly an American master, but I just do not find his stories all that interesting. The only way I would read more of his work would be under the compulsion of being enrolled in another graduate seminar (not likely!).

I respect James' accomplishment, but I just do not like his work.

This book, which collects the first ten years of Henry James'short stories is, I think, a good place to begin with James--afterall, it's where he himself started. The stories vary in quality, and some of the earliest are rather amateurish compared to later James, but each has its rewards, and in reading them you can experience the development of a truly remarkable writer. Story by story it's a pleasure to read his almost liquid descriptions of people and places. Once in a while he almost seems surreal, as in this sentence from a story about the Civil War that he wrote in his early 20s: "The blood that has been shed gathers itself into a vast globule and drops into the ocean." Some of the stories are ghost tales rather in the line of Edgar Allen Poe, while others are romances or character studies. James rarely gives us a perfectly happy ending, but once in a while, as in the story "Travelling Companions," he lets himself write a charmingly Austinesque love story ending in marriage.

The price of this book is a bit high, but with your Amazon discount it's actually a bargain. As with all Library of America books, it's really the equivalent of at least 3 or 4 regular length books rolled into one. By using top quality thin acid free paper, they've somehow fit 960 pages of Henry James stories into a fine quality hardback book not much larger than a thick paperback. It's the kind of book you can take with you on the plane, and without the dustjacket it looks and feels as 19th century as the work inside. I find reading Henry James immensely relaxing and thought-provoking, and I can strongly recommend this book to any James fan, or anyone who is ready to make the plunge. END