JAMES, HENRY

born April 15, 1843, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Feb. 28, 1916, London, Eng. Henry James, 1905 American novelist and, as a naturalized English citizen from 1915, a great figure in the transatlantic culture. His fundamental theme was the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash with the corruption and wisdom of the Old, as illustrated in such works as Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and The Ambassadors (1903). born June 3, 1811, Albany, N.Y., U.S. died Dec. 18, 1882, Cambridge, Mass. American philosophical theologian, the father of the novelist Henry James and the philosopher William James. A graduate of Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. (1830), James worked in business and law and then studied at Princeton Theological Seminary (183537). Although he was reared in a strict Presbyterian family, he was repelled by orthodox Protestantism and gave up adherence to institutional religion. He lived in Europe for several years, and while he was in England in 1844 he became acquainted with the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, which became the framework for his own philosophy. His best writings were compiled by William James in The Literary Remains of Henry James (1885). Additional reading Leon Edel, Henry James, 5 vol. (195372), also available in a one-volume abridged ed. by the author, Henry James, a Life (1985), is a full-length biography of the novelist based on his unpublished correspondence, diaries, and other documents. Other biographies include F.W. Dupee, Henry James (1951, reissued 1973); Gordon Pirie, Henry James (1974); and Harry T. Moore, Henry James (also published as Henry James and His World, 1974). Aspects of James's works are examined in F.O. Matthiessen, Henry James: The Major Phase (1944, reprinted 1970); Frederick C. Crews, The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James (1957, reissued 1971); Peter Buitenhuis, The Grasping Imagination: The American Writings of Henry James (1970); Sarah B. Daugherty, The Literary Criticism of Henry James (1981); Vivien Jones, James the Critic (1985); Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A Study of the Short Fiction (1990); and Philip Horne, Henry James and Revision: The New York Edition (1990). Roger Gard (ed.), Henry James (1968, reissued 1986), collects contemporary criticism.