The Art of the Novel

By Henry James

Book Overview

This book is a guide to writing by Henry James, OM (15 April 1843 - 28 February 1916), an American writer who spent most of his writing career in Britain. He is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. 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 a number of novels showing Americans encountering Europe and Europeans. His method of writing from a character's point of view allowed him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrators brought a new depth to narrative fiction. James contributed significantly to literary criticism, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. James claimed that a text must first and foremost be realistic and contain a representation of life that is recognisable to its readers. Good novels, to James, show life in action and are, most importantly, interesting. In addition to his voluminous works of fiction he published articles and books of travel, biography, autobiography, and criticism, and wrote plays. James alternated between America and Europe for the first twenty years of his life; eventually he settled in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1517568005
• ISBN13: 9781517568009
• Release Date: October 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The master on his mastery

Richard Blackmur in his introduction to this volume tells us that most of these prefaces were written for the famed 'New York Edition of his works. According to Lubbock," The labour was atorment, a care, and a delight, as his letters and the Prefaces themselves amply show. The thinking and the writing were hard and full and critical to the point of exasperation; the purpose was high, the reference wide, and the terms of discourse had to be conceived and defined as successive need for them arose. He had to elucidate and appropriate for the critical intellect the substance and principle of his career as an artist, and he had to do this, such was the idiosyncracy of his mind-specifically, example following lucid example with the consistency of mathematicl equation, so that in the Poetics, if his premises were accepted his conclusions must be taken as inevitable." p. vii Blackmur says that criticism has never been more ambitious, or more useful. He cites James' definition of his task in his preface to 'Roderick Hudson'. "These notes represent over a considerable course the continuity of an artist's endeavor, the growth of the whole operative consciousness, and best of all, perhaps their own tendency to multiply , with the implication, thereby of a memory enriched'. Among the prefaces included are those to 'Roderick Hudson' ' What Maisie Knew' 'The Princess Cassamissima' 'The Spoils of Poynton' 'The Altar to the Dead' 'The Tragic Muse'' The Lesson of the Master' ' The Aspern Papers' 'The Awkward Age''The Portrait of a Lady' ' The American' James famous advice to the writer about ' trying to be one upon whom nothing is lost' certainly seems to apply to himself in his effort to understand and deepen the meaning of his own work both for himself and for his readers.