The Portable Henry James (Viking Portable Library)

By Henry James and Morton Dauwen Zabel

Book Overview

Henry James wrote with an imperial elegance of style, whether his subjects were American innocents or European sophisticates, incandescent women or their vigorous suitors. His omniscient eye took in the surfaces of cities, the nuances of speech, dress, and manner, and, above all, the microscopic interactions, hesitancies, betrayals, and self-betrayals that are the true substance of relationships. The entirely new Portable Henry James provides an unparalleled range of this great body of work: seven major tales, including Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, "The Beast in the Jungle," and "The Jolly Corner"; a sampling of revisions James made to some of his most famous work; travel writing; literary criticism; correspondences; autobiography; descriptions of the major novels; and parodies by famous contemporaries, including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, and Graham Greene.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140150552
• ISBN13: 9780140150551
• Release Date: May 1977
• Publisher: Penguin
• Length: 704 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.7" x 1.3" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Not for the beginner.

I have never enjoyed a writer so much as Henry James. But I could not have enjoyed him without first Shakespeare, Homer, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Hemingway, the Brontes, George Eliot and so many more. I put off reading Henry James because I had heard he was so long-winder, so boring. Without a doubt, I am convinced that "The Beast in the Jungle" is his best, it is his most autobiographical, it is so sad, and perhaps the best romance (as in "romance") writing I have ever come across. Life experiences help immensely in one's reading, and this is particularly true for "The Beast in the Jungle." The "Turn of the Screw" is a great ghost story, but at the end of the day, it is simply a ghost story. Carrying the "Portable Henry James" on your flights will guarantee you will mind less the missed flights, the delayed flights and the canceled flights.

Best introduction yet to Henry James

This collection gives an excellent overview of James' work and offers the reader a chance to engage a notoriously daunting author at many levels. There are the stories, the essays, the letters, and of course select novels. This is the best place to start.