JAMES HENRY

ΤΟ ΜΑΘΗΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΔΑΣΚΑΛΟΥ
Αν η «ζωή του δημιουργού είναι η τέχνη του» και αν «η τέχνη γεννάει ζωή», τότε ποιος είναι ο ρόλος του έρωτα, και γιατί τόσοι και τόσοι δημιουργοί υποτάχτηκαν σ' αυτόν με πάθος; Το θέμα εξετάζεται από τον Henry James με ειρωνική αλλά βαθιά ανθρώπινη ματιά, καθώς ο έρωτας, η δημιουργικότητα, η χαρά της ζωής, η αφοσίωση και η έμπνευση συγκροτούνται και επαναπροσδιορίζονται, προβάλλοντας τη βαθιά εξάρτηση της τέχνης της ζωής από την ίδια την τέχνη, αφήνοντας να εννοηθεί πως μπορεί ενίοτε η απόλαυση να καταστέλλει τη δημιουργία, αλλά εξίσου συ...
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(P/B) THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
With an Introduction by Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading The Wings of the Dove is a tale of desire and possession, of love and death. It is in essence a simple story, but one that opens up the great subject of art: life itself. To tackle this, James moves between fairytale storylines and the startlingly modern techniques of his testing late style. An unspeakable subtext lies beneath the silence. Distinct points of view and different centres of consciousness betray the dislocation of the social facade from the desolation beneath. For ...
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(H/B) THE BOSTONIANS
Henry James' celebrated novel about a passionate New England suffragette, her displaced southern gentleman cousin, and a charismatic young woman whose loyalty they both wished to possess goes so directly to the heart of sexual politics that it speaks to us with a voice as fresh and as vital as when the book was first published in 1882. Majestic in its movement, rich and sympathetic in its ironies, The Bostonians is the work of a master psychologist at the top of his form. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
The stories in this collection were written mostly between 1888 and 1897, a time when Henry James's writing was concerned with the art of fiction and the position of the artist in society. The motif and title story, 'The Figure in the Carpet', is an inspired joke, a masterpiece of double-entendre that demands the reader's undivided love and attention and continues to baffle its critics. Also included are 'The Author of Beltraffio', an absorbing story of family infighting, authorship and tragedy, and 'The Private Life', a spirited tale that...
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(H/B) THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
Of the three late masterpieces that crown the extraordinary literary achievement of Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902) is at once the most personal and the most elemental. James drew on the memory of a beloved cousin who died young to create one of the three central characters, Milly Theale, an heiress with a short time to live and a passion for experiencing life to its fullest. To the creation of the other two, Merton Densher and the magnificent, predatory Kate Croy, who conspire in an act of deceit and betrayal, he brought a lifet...
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(H/B) THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA
When Henry James chose to, as he did in The Princess Casamassima, he could write about the political turbulence of his era with astonishing excitement and directness. The London underworld of terrorist conspiracies that entangles his hero, Hyacinth Robinson, comes alive under his pen with a violence that seems, 100 years later, only too familiar. Young bookbinder Hyacinth Robinson, the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a woman who died in prison after murdering him, has been raised by an impoverished seamstress. Hyacinth has grown up sen...
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(P/B) THE AMERICAN
The text reprinted in this volume is based on an examination of the five printed versions of The American (first published in 1877) which appeared in James's lifetime, and it is preceded by his "Preface to the New York Edition" (1907). The textual history of the novel is traced in A Note on the Text; a list of substantive variants and emendations; a facsimile manuscript page showing James's method of revision; and a list of the installments of the novel as they appeared in The Atlantic. "Backgrounds and Sources" includes relevant extracts ...
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Η ΓΟΗΤΕΙΑ ΟΡΙΣΜΕΝΩΝ ΠΑΛΙΩΝ ΡΟΥΧΩΝ - ΟΙ ΦΙΛΟΙ ΤΩΝ ΦΙΛΩΝ
Τα φανταστικά διηγήματα που περιέχονται σε αυτό τον τόμο με τους τίτλους "Η γοητεία ορισμένων παλιών ρούχων" και "Οι φίλοι των φίλων" έχουν γραφτεί στα 1868 και 1869, αντίστοιχα, δηλαδή πριν και μετά το σπουδαίο "Στρίψιμο της βίδας". Πρόκειται για δυο κείμενα στα οποία, παρ' όλη τη χρονική απόσταση μεταξύ τους και τη διαφορετικότητα στην υπόθεση, συνυπάρχει το ερωτικό και το φανταστικό στοιχείο. Τόσο στη "Γοητεία ορισμένων παλιών ρούχων" όσο και στο "Οι φίλοι των φίλων", υπάρχει μια πρωταγωνιστική τριάδα, αποτελούμενη από έναν άντρα και δύ...
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(P/B) THE AMBASSADORS
This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition of The Ambassadors again includes the author's preface as well as the most significant variants of the three earlier editions of the novel published in James's lifetime. The importance of these variants and the conditions under which the novel was written and revised-conditions leading to the continuing controversy over the order of the chapters-are discussed in the editor's rewritten and updated essay on editions and revisions of The Ambassadors. As often as possible, the annotations to t...
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(P/B) THE NOTEBOOKS OF HENRY JAMES
"For other novelists the value of Henry James's Notebooks is immense and to brood other them a major experience. The glow of the great impresario is on the pages. They are occasionally readable and endlessly stimulating, often moving and are ocasionally relieved by a drop of gossip." - V. S. Pritchett, New Statesman "The Notebooks take us into his study, and here we can observe him, at last, in the very act of creation at his writing table." - Leon Edel, Atlantic Monthly "A document of prime importance." - Edmund Wilson, New Yorker...
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ΟΙ ΦΑΚΕΛΟΙ ΤΟΥ ΑΣΠΕΡΝ
Ο θάνατος του Τζέφρι Άσπερν άφησε ερωτηματικά πίσω του. Ο ρομαντικός και πετυχημένος ποιητής του 19ου αιώνα έγραψε αποκαλυπτικά γράμματα για τα πιο όμορφα μάτια της εποχής του. Η Τζουλιάνα Μπορντερό, μια πολύ ηλικιωμένη γυναίκα με υπέροχα μάτια, κρύβει ως επτασφράγιστο μυστικό τους φακέλους με τα γράμματα του Τζέφρι Άσπερν. Στο ειδυλλιακό σκηνικό της Βενετίας εξελίσσεται το κυνήγι της αλήθειας από τον αφηγητή. Η αντιπαράθεση με την δαιμονική γηραιά κυρία και η πολύπλοκη σχέση που αναπτύσσει με την ανιψιά της, την δεσποινίδα Τίνα, συνθέτουν...
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(P/B) THE TURN OF THE SCREW
This text is the first-and only-modern text to follow the New York Edition, the one which had James's final authority. Contexts includes twenty-six selections, from James's letters, notebooks, and other writings during the period 1863-1908, centering on the ghost story, the supernatural and, in particular, "my little book," The Turn of the Screw. Also reproduced are four paintings by Charles Demuth. The essays in Criticism span one hundred years, providing a rich array of perspectives on James and his story. Representing contemporary reac...
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(P/B) WHAT MAISIE KNEW
The child of parents who divorce, remarry and then embark on adulterous affairs, Maisie Farange survives by her intelligence and spirit. For all its sombre theme of childhood innocence exposed to a corrupted adult world, this novel is one of James's comic masterpieces. The outrageous behaviour of the characters on the seedy fringes of the English upper class is conveyed with wit and relish. The dual perspective of a sophisticated narrator richly appreciative of the absurdities of the adult sexual merry-go-round and the candid vision of Mai...
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(P/B) THE SPOILS OF POYNTON
Mrs Gareth, widowed chatelaine of Poynton, is fighting to keep her house with its priceless objets d'art from her son Owen and his lovely, utterly philistine fiance'e. When she discovers that her young friend and sympathizer Fleda Vetch is secretly in love with Owen, she thrusts her into the battle-line. The power struggle that ensues between the three women leaves Owen vacillating. What is at stake is not the mere possession of tables and chairs; it is, for Fleda, a conflict between aesthetic ideals, ethical imperatives, and her innermost...
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(P/B) THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
The text of this 1902 novel is again that of the fully corrected and annotated reprint of the New York Edition (1909), together with James's preface and the two frontispieces he commissioned for the New York Edition of The Wings of the Dove. The "Textual Appendix" includes notes on the novel's textual history and lists all substantive revisions that James made to the novel, both in 1902 and in1909. "The Author and the Novel," introduced by editorial commentary and new to the Second Edition, includes selections from James's notebooks, lett...
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(P/B) THE GOLDEN BOWL
Henry James's last completed novel, The Golden Bowl, is the story of two flawed marriages. The lives and relationships of Maggie Verver and her widowed American millionaire father, Adam, are changed and challenged by the beautiful and charming Charlotte Stant, who is the former lover of Maggie's husband, the impoverished Italian, Prince Amerigo. The narrative is underpinned by complex symbolism. The gilded crystal bowl with its almost invisible flaw is the vehicle which James uses to reveal past misdemeanours and make his characters face t...
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(H/B) THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
The Portrait of a Lady is the most stunning achievement of Henry James's early period--in the 1860s and '70s when he was transforming himself from a talented young American into a resident of Europe, a citizen of the world, and one of the greatest novelists of modern times. A kind of delight at the success of this transformation informs every page of this masterpiece. Isabel Archer, a beautiful, intelligent, and headstrong American girl newly endowed with wealth and embarked in Europe on a treacherous journey to self-knowledge, is delineat...
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(P/B) THE AMERICAN
Henry James's third novel is an exploration of his most powerful, perennial theme - the clash between European and American cultures, the Old World and the New. Christopher Newman, a 'self-made' American millionaire in France, falls in love with the beautiful aristocratic Claire de Bellegarde. Her family, however, taken aback by his brash American manner, rejects his proposal of marriage. When Newman discovers a guilty secret in the Bellegardes' past, he confronts a moral dilemma: Should he expose them and thus gain his revenge? James's ma...
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(P/B) THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
The text of this Second Edition of one of Henry James's most important novels is that of the New York Edition (1908). In a sense, there are two distinctly separate Portraits-the 1880-81 First Edition and the New York Edition, which James extensively revised. The editor has meticulously prepared a list of textual variants to facilitate comparative reading of the novel. Nina Baym, F. O. Matthiessen, and Anthony J. Mazzella provide differing interpretations of James's revision process. Henry James and the Novel culls autobiographical excerpts...
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(H/B) THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
In The Portrait of a Lady Henry James tells the story of one of his most enchanting heroines, Isabel Archer, a young New York woman whose life is changed when she is visited by her aunt Mrs Touchett following the death of her father (her mother having died long before). Isabel is invited to accompany her aunt back to Europe, and fascinates everyone with her beauty, intelligence and vivacity. When she inherits money from her uncle this turns out to have unexpected and undesired consequences. (From the publisher)...
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