The writer Henry James was born into a wealthy family in New York City in 1843. His father, Henry, Sr., was a religious freethinker and follower of the philosopher Swedenborg, and associated with many of the literary men of his day, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Young Henry was educated privately in New York, Geneva, Paris, and London; the family lived alternately in Europe and the United States for much of his childhood.
He began his literary career writing for magazines. Having dropped out of Harvard Law School to pursue writing, he associated with the literary set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was a good friend of budding novelist and critic William Dean Howells. In 1864 James’s first published piece of fiction, the story “A Tragedy of Error,” appeared in the Continental Monthly. He also wrote reviews and articles for the Atlantic Monthly and the Nation. He frequently traveled to Europe and in 1876 settled permanently in London.
James is often cited as one of literature’s great stylists; it has been said that his writing surrounds a subject and illuminates it with a flickering light, rather than pinning it down; according to Virginia Woolf in her diaries, he spoke in the same way. His style became more and more indirect as he moved from his early period, when he produced novels that considered the differences between American and European culture and character—Roderick Hudson (1876), The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), Daisy Miller (1879), Washington Square ( 1881 ), and The Portrait of a Lady (1881)—to his middle period, when he wrote two novels about social reformers and revolutionaries, The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima, both in 1886, as well as the novellas The Aspern Papers (1888) and The Turn of the Screw ( 1898) .
In 1898 James retreated to Lamb House, a mansion he had purchased in Rye, England. There he produced the great works of his final period, in which in complex prose he subtly portrayed his characters’ inner lives: The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904). He returned to the United States for the last time to supervise production of a twenty-six-volume edition of his most important fictional works that was published between 1907 and 1917. The American Scene ( 1907), an account of his last journey to America, is highly critical of his native land. He became a British citizen in 1915. Shortly after receiving the Order of Merit, Henry James died, on February 28, 1916, leaving behind a prodigious body of work: twenty novels, 112 stories, and twelve plays, as well as voluminous travel writing and literary journalism and criticism.
THE WORLD OF HENRY JAMES AND DAISY MILLER AND WASHINGTON SQUARE
1789 William James, Henry’s grandfather, emigrates to the United States from Ireland.
1811 Henry James, Sr., the author’s father, is born.
1826 Washington Square is dedicated as a public place and mili tary parade ground. Originally a marsh, then a graveyard, it served as a spot for duels and executions prior to this trans formation.
1828 Construction begins on the first house on the north side of Washington Square; over the next thirty years Washington Square North will become the most expensive and fashion able street bordering Washington Square.
1832 William James dies, leaving a $3 million estate to his twelve children.
1835 Henry James’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Walsh, moves into a townhouse at 18 Washington Square North (now part of 2 Fifth Avenue), occupying it until 1847. James visits her often as an infant and toddler.
1836 Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his essay “Nature,” setting forth the main principles of Transcendentalism.
1837 William Dean Howells is born; he will be James’s colleague, an important editor, and a founder of American “realism.”
1842 Henry’s brother William is born.
1843 On April 15, Henry James, Jr., is born at 21 Washington Place, in New York City, around the corner from his grand mother. In October the James family relocates to Europe.
1844 The family returns to New York City.
1849 Henry, Sr.’s social circle comprises philosophers and writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emer son. Henry, Jr., is educated privately in the United States and Europe. His exposure to the Old World during his form ative years establishes in him a lifelong preference for Europe over America.
1853 The New York City Commission pays $5,000,000 for land that will become Central Park, a vast public recreation space in the European style. The first portion of the park will open in 1858; it will be complete some sixteen years hence.