Embarrassments

by Henry James

Overview

The almost autoerotic parable, The Figure in the Carpet (1896) concerns the "secret" surrounding the published works of Hugh Vereker, which his friends, the narrator and another critic, seek in vain to unravel. The rival critic at last discovers the secret, but dies before he can reveal it. Glasses (1896) is the gruesome tale of how personal physical appearances effected prospects in the marriage market. The Next Time (1895) was another of James' contributions to The Yellow Book in which an author, determined to write a best seller, continually produces "an unscrupulous, an unsparing, a shameless, merciless masterpiece." They all, of course, prove to be commercially unsuccessful. The Way It Came (1896) was re-entitled The Friends of the Friends in its New York edition. It is a return to one of James' old themes-the anti-marriage plot.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783732697335
Publisher:	Outlook Verlag
Publication date:	05/23/2018
Pages:	154
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Henry James, an American-British author, was born on April 15, 1843, and died on February 28, 1916. He is well-known as a key transitional personality between literary realism and modernism. His novels dealt with the social and marital interplay between Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Author Henry James was nominated for the Nobel Prize for English Literature. His novel, "The Turn of the Screw," is regarded as one of the most analyzed and ambiguous ghost stories in the English language. The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) were James's three most significant novels. Henry James was the author of 20 novels, 112 tales, 12 plays, several volumes of travel and criticism, and a great deal of literary journalism. A master of prose fiction from the beginning, he practiced it as a fertile innovator, enlarged the form, and placed upon it his own stamp. The Ambassadors is the first in a series of three novels by Henry James, published between 1901 and 1914, dealing with the subject of an heiress doomed to die by illness. This novel avoids its cliché subject by focusing on the characters surrounding the unfortunate young woman.

Date of Birth:

April 15, 1843

Date of Death:

February 28, 1916

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Attended school in France and Switzerland; Harvard Law School, 1862-63