Death In Henry James

Terminations is Henry James's most thematically unified collection of stories. Gathered in 1895, and following his fascination with the supernatural in the 1880s, this elegant collection explores the sadness of loss, both physical and spiritual, and finds James at his introspective best, while providing a glimpse of how the author dealt with death in his own life. The collection consists of four stories: "The Death of the Lion," in which the narrator prepares to write an obituary for a great editor he admired; "The Coxon Fund," where an endowment from a will comes unexpectedly to a seemingly undeserving character; "The Middle Years," a brief glimpse at the public reception of a novel and the private sacrifice it exacted from its author; and "The Altar of the Dead," a moving meditation on finding meaning in life that James wrote in response to the death of a close lady friend. Terminations reveals a writer preoccupied with the endings of life, expressing his thoughts in prose that is as finely balanced as the most famous of James's work.

Moving beyond established ideas of haunted Henry James, this book argues that death is as important a concept for understanding James's fiction as gender, sexuality and modernity, which have come to dominate James studies. Combining formal analysis and close reading with theoretical and historical approaches and focusing on key novels and tales from across James's career, Andrew Cutting explores five instances of Jamesian death: sacrifice, the corpse, morbidity, afterlife and demography. This is the first full-length study of this subject.

I had simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it must have begun when I received my manuscript back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn was my "chief," as he was called in the office: he had the high mission of bringing the paper up. This was a weekly periodical, which had been supposed to be almost past redemption when he took hold of it. It was Mr. Deedy who had let the thing down so dreadfully: he was never mentioned in the office now save in connexion with that misdemeanour. Young as I was I had been in a manner taken over from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant and office-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement and depression, parted with at a rough valuation. I could account for my continuity but on the supposition that I had been cheap. I rather resented the practice of fathering all flatness on my late protector, who was in his unhonoured grave; but as I had my way to make I found matter enough for complacency in being on a "staff." At the same time I was aware of my exposure to suspicion as a product of the old lowering system. This made me feel I was doubly bound to have ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my proposing to Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil Paraday. I remember how he looked at me-quite, to begin with, as if he had never heard of this celebrity, who indeed at that moment was by no means in the centre of the heavens; and even when I had knowingly explained he expressed but little confidence in the demand for any such stuff. When I had reminded him that the great principle on which we were supposed to work was just to create the demand we required, he considered a moment and then returned: "I see-you want to write him up."

Reproduction of the original: The Death of the Lion by Henry James

The delightful memoir by James's feisty and feminist secretary, with a biographical essay and excerpts from her diaries

A young woman starts working as a governess at the isolated estate of Bly outside London. There, she is greeted by the two orphaned children she is to take care of, an ambiguous housekeeper, and an icy, supernatural atmosphere. Soon, a couple of peculiar figures begin to appear unannounced, and a creeping horror tightens its grip on both the governess and the reader. The Turn of the Screw is one of the most classic ghost stories of all time, written by the master of the psychological novel, Henry James. Perhaps more than anyone from his time, James came to inspire our modern horror mythologies, from the image of innocence as evil to schizoid labyrinths a la Roman Polanski. HENRY JAMES [1843-1916] was born in New York but emigrated early to Europe. He is one of the most important names in Anglo-Saxon literature, renowned as a great stylist and as a link between the Victorian era and modernism. Among his most famous novels are The American [1877], Portrait of a Lady [1881], and especially The Turn of the Screw [1898].

I had simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it must have begun when I received my manuscript back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn was my “chief,” as he was called in the office: he had the high mission of bringing the paper up. This was a weekly periodical, which had been supposed to be almost past redemption when he took hold of it. It was Mr. Deedy who had let the thing down so dreadfully: he was never mentioned in the office now save in connexion with that misdemeanour. Young as I was I had been in a manner taken over from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant and office-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement and depression, parted with at a rough valuation.

Reproduction of the original: The Altar of the Dead by Henry James