Writer of 5 volume biography henry james
Henry James: The Master: 1901-1916
Highly unlikely that those 21 years saw an uniform level of work, an equal intensity of focus. I imagine there were highs and lows, times when the stitch was dropped, times when the cloth bunched up, and times when the purr of the sewing machine was the only sound heard. But the Life showed no sign of those varying times. It flows, seamlessly, a narrative of great grace and penetrating insight. Its triumph is the imposition of form on chronological chaos, the making of a Life out of a life.
The writing of three mature novels and two works of autobiography, the deaths of family and friends, the worry over one's literary legacy, the body's decay, the ambiguous relations with younger writers, the Great War: these were less events than happenings when they happened in James's life, but in Edel's hands, they become events, they acquire proportion, weight and texture, they join up into a beautiful tapestry. Life is not art, but Edel has done what James says art must do: "Art makes life, makes interest, makes importance." Edel shows why James's life is interesting and important.
Henry James
Joseph Leon Edel was born September 9, 1907 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received a master's degree in English from McGill University in Montreal in 1928 and a doctorate in literature from the University of Paris in 1932. In 1932, he was an assistant professor of English at Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Between 1934 and 1943, he worked as a freelance writer and journalist and in broadcasting. During World War II, he served in the Army. He was a professor of English at New York University from 1953 to 1972 and at the University of Hawaii from 1972 to 1978. His five-volume biography of Henry James, published between 1953 and 1972, has been considered among the finest biographies by and about an American author. Two of the volumes won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. He also edited books on James's letters, plays, essays, criticism and stories and wrote introductions to new editions of James's novels. He also wrote critical biographies of Willa Cather and Henry David Thoreau, a book about the Bloomsbury circle entitled A House of Lions, and Wartime Memoir. He was the editor of four volumes of Edmund Wilson's papers. He died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 89.
Henry James
American and British writer (1843–1916)
For other people named Henry James, see Henry James (disambiguation).
Henry JamesOM ((1843-04-15)15 April 1843 – (1916-02-28)28 February 1916) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologistWilliam James and diaristAlice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916.Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; .