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The turn of the screw
The Turn of the Screw, originally published in 1898, is a gothic ghost story novel written by Henry James. A nameless governess reports the events of two ghosts who stalk the young children she has charge over. Is she reliable, or an imaginative neurotic? Henry James'...
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The portrait of a lady
The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880–81 and then as a book in 1881. It is one of James's most popular long novels, and is regarded by critics as one of his finest. The...
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The Aspern papers
The Aspern Papers is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on the letters Percy...
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The ambassadors
The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review (NAR). This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period. Henry James considered The Ambassadors his best, or perhaps his best-wrought,...
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What Maisie knew
What Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Chap-Book and (revised and abridged) in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later that year. It tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible parents. The book...
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The beast in the jungle
The Beast in the Jungle is a 1903 novella by Henry James, first published as part of the collection, The Better Sort. Almost universally considered one of James' finest short narratives, this story treats appropriately universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and...
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The golden bowl
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James' career. The Golden Bowl explores the tangle of interrelationships between a father and...
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Lady Barbarina
Lady Barbarina is a novella by Henry James first published in 1884. Rich and beautiful American girls heading to England to find themselves noble titles through marriage, and using their New World wealth to prop up the waning strength of the aristocracy, was almost a...
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Owen Wingrave
Owen Wingrave is a novella by Henry James, first published in The Graphic in 1892. A young man of good family with a long distinguished military tradition indicates that he will not follow his ancestors' path into the army. Dire results ensue. Owen Wingrave is often...
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The sacred fount
The Sacred Fount is a novel by Henry James, first published in 1901. This strange, often baffling book concerns an unnamed narrator who attempts to discover the truth about the love lives of his fellow-guests at a weekend party in the English countryside. He spurns the...
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The liar
The Liar is a short story by Henry James, which first appeared in The Century Magazine in May-June 1888, and in book form 1889. It is the story of a young successful painter’s dilemma when he reconnects with the woman he once loved during a visit to an English country...
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The Europeans
The Europeans: A sketch is a novel by Henry James, published in 1878. It is essentially a comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of two visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in the 'new' world of New England. The tale opens in Boston and New...
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Daisy Miller
Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James that first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in June–July 1878, and in book form the following year. It portrays the confused courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a compatriot of hers with much more...
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The wings of the dove
The Wings of the Dove is a 1902 novel by Henry James. This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her effect on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honorable motives, while others are...
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A small boy and others
A Small Boy and Others is a book of autobiography by Henry James published in 1913. The book covers James's earliest years and discusses his intellectually active family, his intermittent schooling, and his first trips to Europe. A Small Boy and Others has enjoyed mostly...
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The Bostonians
The Bostonians is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885–1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive...
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Washington Square
Washington Square is a novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant,...
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The jolly corner
The Jolly Corner is a short story by Henry James published first in the magazine The English Review of December, 1908. One of James' most noted ghost stories, The Jolly Corner describes the adventures of Spencer Brydon as he prowls the now-empty New York house where he...
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The tragic muse
The Tragic Muse is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1889-1890 and then as a book in 1890. This wide, cheerful panorama of English life follows the fortunes of two would-be artists: Nick Dormer, who vacillates between a...
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The figure in the carpet
The Figure in the Carpet is a novella published in 1896 in London, by Henry James. The story is told in the first person. The narrator, whose name is never revealed, meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention within...
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An international episode
An International Episode is an 1878 short story by Henry James. Two men visting the US from London meet a pair of charming women who return the visit the following year in London. Romantic intrigues, miscommunication and cultural faux pas abound in this short but...
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The birthplace
The Birthplace is a short story by Henry James, first published in his collection The Better Sort in 1903. A witty satire on the excesses of the worship of William Shakespeare, the story reflects James's skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. The story...
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The chaperon
The Chaperon is a short story by Henry James, first published in 1893. What on earth is a girl to do when London society has convicted her mother of a dreadful sin and has ostracized her? If blood is thicker than water, and the daughter remains loyal to her erring...
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The awkward age
The Awkward Age is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in Harper's Weekly in 1898-1899 and then as a book later in 1899. Originally conceived as a brief, light story about the complications created in her family's social set by a young girl coming of age,...
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The way it came
The Way It Came is a short story published in 1896 in London by Henry James. The unnamed female narrator recounts her obsession with the mystical coincidence of two friends who seem destined to meet and who apparently do unite in spirit after death. Best known under the...
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A London life
A London Life is a novella by Henry James, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1888. A devoted sister attempts to check her sibling's scandalous behavior in the world of British high society. A delightful comedy of Anglo-American manners and a fascinating glimpse...
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Roderick Hudson
Roderick Hudson is a novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1875 as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly, it is a bildungsroman that traces the development of the title character, a sculptor. Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in...
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Confidence
Confidence is a novel by Henry James, first published 1879. This light and somewhat awkward comedy centers on artist Bernard Longueville, scientist Gordon Wright, and the sometimes inscrutable heroine, Angela Vivian. While sketching in Siena, Bernard Longueville meets...
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The wheel of time
The Wheel Of Time is a short story by Henry James, first published two installments in the Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1892 and included in the collection The Private Life, published in 1893. Fanny Knocker is a very, very plain young woman. She is introduced to the...
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The altar of the dead
The Altar of the Dead is a short story by Henry James, first published in his collection Terminations in 1895. A fable of literally life and death significance, the story explores how the protagonist tries to keep the remembrance of his dead friends, to save them from...
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The American
The American is a novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1876–77 and then as a book in 1877. The novel is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman,...
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The reverberator
The Reverberator is a short novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in Macmillan's Magazine in 1888 and then as a book later the same year. Described by the leading web authority on Henry James as "a delightful Parisian bonbon," the comedy traces the...
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The Coxon fund
The Coxon Fund is an 1894 short story by Henry James. This novella explores the relationship between Frank Saltram, a charismatic speaker who is also a freeloader; Ruth Anvoy, a young American who visits her widowed aunt, Lady Coxon, an American who married a Brit; and...
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Collaboration
Collaboration is a short story by Henry James, first published in 1893. The story takes place in Paris sometime after the Franco-Prussian War (1870--Germany won--the French Second Republic collapsed--France embittered). A French poet and a German composer come to admire...
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The death of the lion
The Death of the Lion is an 1894 short story by Henry James. This short novel is a black comedy about fame, manipulation, pretension, and surviving it all. The narrator, a reprehensible and seedy journalist, sets out to interview a minor author, and in his own quest for...
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In the cage
In the Cage is a novella by Henry James, first published as a book in 1898. This long story centres on an unnamed London telegraphist. She deciphers clues to her clients' personal lives from the often cryptic telegrams they submit to her as she sits in the "cage" at the...
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The last of the Valerii
The Last of the Valerii is a short story by Henry James first published in 1884. An unnamed American painter resident in Rome serves as narrator in this story, watching as his god-daughter Martha, becomes the wife of Prince Marco Valerio. The young bride is eager to use...
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The spoils of Poynton
The Spoils of Poynton is a novel by Henry James, first published under the title The Old Things as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1896 and then as a book in 1897. This novel describes the struggle between Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, and...
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The other house
The Other House is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in the Illustrated London News in 1896 and then as a book later the same year. Set in England, this book is something of an oddity in the James canon for its plot revolving around a murder. Julia...
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The outcry
The Outcry is a novel by Henry James published in 1911. The Outcry was the last novel James was able to complete before his death in 1916. The storyline concerns the buying up of Britain's art treasures by wealthy Americans. To cover the gambling debts of his daughter...
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Lord Beaupre
Lord Beaupre is a novella by Henry James, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1892, as the first of three tales for Macmillan’s magazine. What is a young man to do, when because of his pleasant disposition, and (of course) his considerable wealth, he finds...
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The real thing
The Real Thing is a short story by Henry James, first published in 1892 and the following year as the title story in the collection, The Real Thing and Other Stories. This story, often read as a parable, plays with the reality-illusion dichotomy that fascinated James,...
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The lesson of the master
The Lesson of the Master is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in 1888. A promising young writer meets an older man whose works have inspired him, as well as a highly intelligent and attractive young woman, at a gathering in a country house. Anxious...
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Sir Dominick Ferrand
Sir Dominick Ferrand is a short novel by Henry James, first published in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1892. It was later included in the collection The Real Thing and Other Tales, published in 1893. "Levity" is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has...
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Sir Edmund Orme
Sir Edmund Orme is a short novel by Henry James, first published and included in the collection The Lesson of the Master, published in 1892. Henry James wrote a number of ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw being the most famous. Did he believe in ghosts himself, as did...
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The pupil
The Pupil is a short story by Henry James, first published in Longman's Magazine in 1891. It is the emotional story of a precocious young boy growing up in a mendacious and dishonourable family. He befriends his tutor, who is the only adult in his life that he can trust....
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The princess Casamassima
The Princess Casamassima is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1885-1886 and then as a book in 1886. It is the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in radical...
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The papers
The Papers is a novella by Henry James, written in the autumn of 1902, with two other tales, to make up a collection published in the book The better sort in 1903. Today the world is awash with “celebrities” whose only accomplishment is being celebrated by the media...
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The third person
The Third Person is a short story by Henry James, first published and included in the collection The Soft Side, published in 1900. The Third Person is an amusing spoof on spooking. The 'ghostly man about the house' in whom two increasingly competitive maiden ladies come...