Henry James (1843-1916)

Yes: he is actually American. Don't forget it.

James could easily be pushed out of the "modern" category, but he's sufficiently in-between to qualify on this site. You can count on James' long, involute syntax to make an appearance on your exam. He has a lot of testable material, so it's best to focus on knowing A) his style, and B) the names of his characters. The guidebooks are pretty clearn on what James' style looks and feels like. Note that the most likely candidates for your test are The Beast in the Jungle, Portrait of a Lady, and The Turn of the Screw. His biography is here, if you want it.

The Ambassadors

Mr. Lambert Strether is from Woollett, Massachusetts and he has come to Europe at the request of his employer, Mrs. Newsome. Mrs. Newsome's son, Chad, has been in Paris for a long time and the Newsomes are worried that Chad will never return home. Strether is to bring Chad back home. Despite the assistance of his old friend, Waymarsh, and his new friend, Maria Gostrey, Strether is unable to fulfill this task. He is Mrs. Newsome's "ambassador," sent to Paris to protect her interests.

Strether arrives in Paris and his trip becomes a return to his own youth. He enjoys spending time with Chad's young friends, Miss Barrace and Little John Bilham. Strether is charmed by the Countess, Madame de Vionnet, a married woman with whom Chad has begun a relationship. Quite impressed by the Countess, Strether agrees to help her as well - though he does not know how he will be able to appease both Mrs. Newsome and the Countess. From the very beginning, Strether's plan is doomed to fail. He hopes to convince Mrs. Newsome that the Countess has been a positive influence on Chad and that Chad has changed for the better. Waymarsh gives Strether very sound advice: Strether should either follow his directions from Mrs. Newsome, or give up altogether. Strether rejects this advice and tries to find the compromise between two conflicting positions. Just when Chad seems willing to co back home to Woollett, it is Strether who convinces the young man to stay in Paris for a little while longer.

Strether's fate quickly runs downhill. Mrs. Newsome sends her daughter, Sarah Pocock (Chad's sister), to bring Chad home. Sarah arrives with her husband, Jim Pocock, and her sister-in-law, Mamie Pocock. It is suggested that Chad will return home to marry Mamie Pocock and continue in the family business: advertising. Unlike Strether, Sarah Pocock is not amused by Society and its trappings, nor is she impressed with the Countess, nor is she inspired by the architecture and atmosphere of Paris. Sarah intends to do her job and she does it quickly. It does not take very long for Chad to get himself ready to leave Paris. His condition to Sarah is that he will agree to return home if Strether gives him the word. Sarah turns to Strether, considering that the task has been completed - for how could Strether refuse? This is, however, exactly what Strether does.

Fearing that Chad will return home and live a miserable life in business, Strether looks at his own miserable life and is unable to condemn Chad to a similar fate. Strether knows that Chad will return home regardless of what he says. Still, Strether does not want the blot on his conscience. This move is costly for Strether: he will likely lose his job with the Newsomes. The possibility of his marriage with Mrs. Newsome is nullified as well. In sum, Strether, a man with very little money, has lost the opportunity to get a good deal more. In the end of the novel, the only solace that he has is in knowing that he has been true to his ideals and has gained nothing for himself.

The Beast in the Jungle

John Marcher, the protagonist, is re-aquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years earlier, who remembers his odd secret- Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle."

May decides to take a flat nearby in London, and to spend her days with Marcher curiously awaiting what fate has in stall for John. Of course Marcher is a self-centered egoist, believing that he is precluded from marrying so that he does not subject his wife to his "spectacular fate". So he takes May to the theatre and invites her to an occasional dinner, while not allowing her to really get close to him for her own sake. As he sits idly by and allows the best years of his life to pass, he takes May down as well, until the denouement wherein he learns that the great misfortune of his life was to throw it away, and to ignore the love of a good woman, based upon his preposterous sense of foreboding.

The Golden Bowl

Adam Verver, a US billionaire in London, dotes on daughter Maggie, an innocent abroad. An impecunious Italian, Prince Amerigo, marries her even though her best friend, Charlotte Stant, an alabaster beauty with brains, no money, and a practical and romantic nature, is his lover. She and Amerigo keep it secret from Maggie that they know each other, so Maggie interests her widowed father in Charlotte, who is happy with the match because she wants to be close to Amerigo. Charlotte desires him, the lovers risk discovery, Amerigo longs for Italy, Maggie wants to spare her father pain, and Adam wants to return to America to build a museum. Amidst lies and artifice, what fate awaits adulterers?

The Portrait of a Lady

First published in 1881. It is the story of a young female American, Isabel Archer, who inherits a large amount of money, which left her to the Machiavellan schemings of two European expatriates. Like many of James' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably Italy.

The Aspern Papers

A novella about the unsuccessful attempts of the biographer of a famous and long-dead poet (Jeffrey Aspern) to secure some papers from the poet’s aged former mistress and her homely daughter. It is set in Venice. The protagonist encourages the daughter’s growing infatuation withhim in order to get the papers.

Daisy Miller

This novella deals with the eponymous American girl and her courtship by Winterbourne, both of whom are expatriates in Italy and Switzerland. She is overly flirtatious and dies a tragic death.

Turn of the Screw

Originally published in 1898, it is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation.

Due to its style, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The reader is challenged to determine if the protagonist, a nameless governess, is reliably reporting events or instead is some kind of neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the waters, her written account of the experience -- a frame tale -- is being read many years later at a Christmas house party by someone who claims to have known her.

An unnamed narrator listens to a manuscript read by a male friend from a former governess whom the latter claimed to know and who is now dead.
A young governess is hired by a man who has found himself responsible for his niece and nephew after the death of their parents. He lives in London and has no interest whatsoever in the children. The boy is at a boarding school. The girl, Flora, is living at his country home where she is cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. He gives the governess full charge of the children and makes it clear he never wants to hear from her again regarding them. The governess travels to her new employer's house and begins her duties. Shortly thereafter, the boy, Miles, turns up after being expelled from his school. For some mysterious reason, the headmaster feels he is a threat to the other boys.
The governess begins to see and hear strange things. She learns that her predecessor, a Miss Jessel, and her lover Quint, a clever but abusive man, died under curious circumstances. Gradually, she becomes convinced that the pair are somehow using the children to continue their relationship from beyond the grave. The governess takes action against the perceived threat with tragic consequences.

"The Art of Fiction"

In his classic essay The Art of Fiction, he argued against rigid proscriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest possible freedom in content and approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality. James wrote many valuable critical articles on other novelists; typical is his insightful book-length study of his American predecessor Nathaniel Hawthorne.