
A resourceful and prolific writer of fiction, travel, criticism, and cultural commentary, Henry James is one of the most entertaining of American writers. His first five novels, presented complete in this Library of America volume, are filled with sparkling dialogue, masterfully timed suspense, and the romance of youthful and artistic aspiration. The European-American contrast, which gives a special dimension and sharpness to all of James’s cultural observations, is brilliantly deployed in these early works. And what is additionally appealing about them is an attentiveness, not as frequently found in his other novels, to the American scene in New York and New England. James’s first novel, Watch and Ward (1871), written when he was only 28, is a Pygmalion-type story in which a proper Bostonian gentleman grows to love and eventually marry the much younger woman whose guardian he is. Roderick Hudson (1875) is a novel about a headstrong and proud young American sculptor of generous native talent who loses his way among the entanglements and temptations of Italy. Set in Rome, where James was living when he wrote it, the novel describes the studios, society, and excesses of the cosmopolitan artists’ colony there. The American (1877) was written in Paris and is filled with scenes of Parisian life, the expatriate culture of American tourists, and the closed and protective world behind the barriers of old families and traditions. The confrontations between Old World scheming and New World energy are presented through the efforts of Christopher Newman, a successful, handsome, Western businessman, to marry the beautiful, refined, and tragic Madame de Cintré. In The Europeans (1878) a pristine, conservative, 1830s New England village is invaded by two visiting cousins, brother and sister, from the European branch of one of the town’s leading families. The comic exchanges between Eugenia, with her aura of exoticism and her morganatic marriage, and her American hosts, make this one of James’s most delightful studies in character. Confidence (1880), a little-known and charming novel of American expatriates traveling through the great cities and watering-places of Europe, is a light drawing-room comedy about the romantic entanglements among two old friends and the two very different women they encounter. An immensely engaging introduction to one of the great novelists of our own or any country, this is the first volume in our collection of the complete works of James’s fiction.
Author

Henry James, OM (1843-1916), son of theologian Henry James Sr., brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born author, one of the founders and leaders of a school of realism in fiction. He spent much of his life in England and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for a series of major novels in which he portrayed the encounter of America with Europe. His plots centered on personal relationships, the proper exercise of power in such relationships, and other moral questions. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a tale allowed him to explore the phenomena of consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting. James insisted that writers in Great Britain and America should be allowed the greatest freedom possible in presenting their view of the world, as French authors were. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrators in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to realistic fiction, and foreshadowed the modernist work of the twentieth century. An extraordinarily productive writer, in addition to his voluminous works of fiction he published articles and books of travel writing, biography, autobiography, and criticism,and wrote plays, some of which were performed during his lifetime with moderate success. His theatrical work is thought to have profoundly influenced his later novels and tales.