Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
The Aspern Papers
One of James’s favorite short novels, the Aspern Papers tells of the efforts of the nameless narrator to procure the papers of a famous, bu…
Sir Dominick Ferrand
"Levity" is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has about it an attractively lighthearted quality. It tells of…
On the Eve
On the Eve appeared in 1860, two years before Fathers and Sons, Turgenev's most famous novel. It is set in the prior decade (by the end of t…
The Real Thing
The Real Thing is, on one level, a somewhat ironic tale of an artist and two rather particular models. Yet it also raises questions about th…
The Princess Casamassima
Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary unde…
Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69
Scrambles Amongst the Alps is one the great classics (some would say the greatest) of early mountaineering literature, and Edward Whymper (1…
A Little Tour in France
A splendid example of travel writing at its best, in this description of six week tour in France -- from Touraine, down to Provence, then ba…
Roderick Hudson
Published as a serial in 1875, Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in Europe, so important in much of J…
The Spoils of Poynton
The recently widowed Adela Gereth, a lover of beauty and passionate collector of fine objects, strikes up a friendship with the young Fleda …
Witching Hill
The adventures of two young men, which may or may not have to do with the supernatural. - Summary by Nicholas Clifford
The Pupil
Pemberton, a young American with an Oxford education and out of money, takes a job tutoring Morgan Moreen, the 12-year old son of an America…
A Hazard of New Fortunes
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, …
The Vicar of Tours
Over twenty years before Anthony Trollope wrote The Warden, in which the gentle but unfortunate Rev. Septimus Harding becomes the prey of an…
A Little Swiss Sojourn
A charming brief account of a two months' autumnal stay on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. Howells, who was there with his family travelin…
The Chaperon
What on earth is a girl to do when London society has convicted her mother of a dreadful sin and has ostracized her? If blood is thicker tha…
The Jolly Corner
"The Jolly Corner," published in 1908, is considered by many to be a ghost story ranking second only to "The Turn of the Scre…
The Reverberator
Another Jamesian look at Americans in Paris. What happens when a reporter for an American scandal sheet (The Reverberator) is looking for a …
The Papers
Today the world is awash with “celebrities” whose only accomplishment is being celebrated by the media in all its various forms. Henry James…
The Birthplace
Neither the name of Shakespeare nor that of Stratford appears directly in this short piece by James, and yet both are absolutely central to …
Sybil, or the Two Nations
Sybil is one of the most prominent political novels of the mid-nineteenth century, taking as its subject the "condition of England"…