Henry James

The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers
, 1993
»The Turn of the Screw» is the classic ghost story for which James is most remembered. Set in a country house, it is a chilling tale of the supernatural. «The Aspern Papers» is a tale of Americans in Europe, cleverly evoking the drama of comedie humaine against the settings of a Venetian palace. Подробнее
Washington Square
, 2001
»Washington Square» marks the culmination of James’s apprentice period as a novelist. With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870’s, a period of great change in the life of the city. This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s, similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion. Through the relationships between Austin Sloper, a celebrated physician, and his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and Catherine's suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression. Подробнее
What Maisie Knew
, 2002
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 Maisie, 'rebounding' from one parent to another like a 'shuttlecock', together create an 'associational magic'. Strangely, unexpectedly, from so much that is tawdry, comes a tale of moral energy and subtlety. James’s foresight was in understanding the modernity of his subject, which is even more relevant today in the twenty-first century. Подробнее
Oxford Bookworms Library 4: Washington Square
, 2008
When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father's permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man. One day Catherine will have a fortune of 30,000 dollars a year... Подробнее
Ghost Stories of Henry James
, 2008
With an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield, University of Kent at Canterbury Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche. This edition includes all ten of his ghost stories, and as such is the fullest collection currently available. The stories range widely in tone and type. They include 'The Jolly Corner', a compelling story of psychological doubling; 'Owen Wingrave', which is also a subtle parable of military tradition; 'The Friends of the Friends', a strange story of uncanny love; and 'The Private Life', which finds a shrewd, high comedy in its ghostly theme. The volume also includes James's great novella The Turn of the Screw, perhaps the most ambiguous and disturbing ghost story ever written. Подробнее
The Portrait of a Lady (+ Audio CD)
, 2005
Isabel Archer – a young American woman – visits her uncle and his family in England. Her uncle dies and leaves her a large fortune. Isabel was always beautiful and charming: now, in addition, she is rich. The question is, whom will she marry? The English nobleman Lord Warburton? Her American suitor Casper Goodwood? Or the refined and sophisticated Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Italy? Подробнее
Daisy Miller
, 2008
A masterpiece by the great American realist Henry James. Daisy Miller is the story of an innocent girl's love and recognition in a society where respectable behaviour counts for everything. Подробнее
The Portrait of a Lady
, 2011
'One ought to choose something very deliberately, and be faithful to that.' Isabel Archer is a young, intelligent, and spirited American girl, determined to relish her first experience of Europe. She rejects two eligible suitors in her fervent commitment to liberty and independence, declaring that she will never marry. Thanks to the generosity of her devoted cousin Ralph, she is free to make her own choice about her destiny. Yet in the intoxicating worlds of Paris, Florence, and Rome, her fond illusions of self-reliance are twisted by the machinations of her friends and apparent allies. What had seemed to be a vista of infinite promise steadily closes around her and becomes instead a 'house of suffocation'. Considered by many one of the finest novels in the English language, this is Henry James's most poised achievement, written at the height of his fame in 1881. It is at once a dramatic Victorian tale of betrayal and a wholly modern psychological study of a woman caught in a web of relations she only comes to understand too late. This edition reproduces the revised New York Edition, with James's own Preface. Подробнее
The Wings of the Dove
, 2009
Confronting a Bronzino portrait in an English country house, a young American heiress comes face to face with her own predicament. For Milly Theale, who seems to have the world before her and at her feet, is fatally ill. Eager for life, eager for love, she embarks on her European adventure, warming to the admiration of her new friends Kate Croy and Merton Densher. But Merton and Kate are secretly engaged, and come to see in this angel with a thumping bank account as a solution to their own problems. For the remarkable Kate, scheming, passionate, poetic, also wants to live... This edition of James's poignant and dramatic novel is based on the revised New York Edition. The cover pictures the Bronzino portrait which is the focus of the key scene in the book. Подробнее
The Turn of the Screw
, 2011
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Revered as one of the greatest ghost stories ever told, James's The Turn of the Screw is an eerie Victorian masterpiece. When an inexperienced governess goes to work at Bly, a country house in Essex to look after a young boy Miles and his sister Flora, all manner of strange events begin to occur. The governess begins to spot a ghostly man and woman around the grounds and is told by the housekeeper that they are the ghosts of the valet and the previous governess. It soon becomes clear that the children are inexplicably connected to these ghosts in some way and the young governess struggles to protect the children, although from exactly what, she is not sure. Подробнее

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