Greg W. Zacharias 
A Companion to Henry James 

Written by some of the world’s most distinguished Henry James
scholars, this innovative collection of essays provides the most
up-to-date scholarship on James’s writings available today.

* Provides an essential, up-to-date reference to the work and
scholarship of Henry James

* Features the writing of a wide range of James scholars

* Places James’s writings within national
contexts–American, English, French, and Italian

* Offers both an overview of contemporary James scholarship and a
cutting edge resource for studying important individual topics

Table of Content

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgments xiv

Introduction 1
Greg W. Zacharias

Chronology of Henry James’s Life and Work 4
Jennifer Eimers

Part I Fiction and Non-Fiction 15

1 Bad Years in the Matrimonial Market: James’s Shorter Fiction, 1865-1878 17
Clair Hughes

2 What Daisy Knew: Reading Against Type in Daisy Miller: A Study 32
Sarah Wadsworth

3 Growing Up Absurd: The Search for Self in Henry James’s The American 51
Wendy Graham

4 Vital Illusions in The Portrait of a Lady 70
Peter Rawlings

5 The Bostonians and the Crisis of Vocation 88
Sarah Daugherty

6 ‘The Abysses of Silence’ in The Turn of the Screw 100
Kimberly C. Reed

7 On Maisie’s Knowing Her Own Mind 121
Robert B. Pippin

8 ‘What woman was ever safe?’ Dangerous Constructions of Womanhood in The Ambassadors 139
Anna Despotopoulou

9 Unwrapping the Ghost: The Design Behind Henry James’s
The Wings of the Dove 156
Evelyne Ender

10 Truth, Knowledge, and Magic in The Golden Bowl 176
Sigi Jöttkandt

11 Henry James and the (Un)Canny American Scene 193
Gert Buelens

12 Revisitings and Revisions in the New York Edition of the Novels and Tales of Henry James 208
Philip Horne

13 What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Love: Henry James’s Last Words 231
Michael Anesko

14 Henry James, Cultural Critic 249
Pierre A. Walker

15 Timeliness and Henry James’s Letters 261
Greg W. Zacharias

Part II Contexts for Reading Henry James 275

16 A Brief Biography of Henry James 277
Jennifer Eimers

17 Jamesian Matter 292
Bill Brown

18 Henry James and the Sexuality of Literature: Before and Beyond Queer Theory 309
Natasha Hurley

19 Exuberance and the Spaces of Inept Instruction: Robert Baden-Powell’s
Scouting for Boys and Henry James’s The Art of the Novel 324
Denis Flannery

20 Nothing Personal: Women Characters, Gender Ideology, and Literary Representation 343
Donatella Izzo

21 The Others: Henry James’s Family 360
Linda Simon

22 Beyond the Rim: Camp Henry James 374
Jonathan Warren

23 Henry James and the United States 390
John Carlos Rowe

24 Henry James and Britain 400
Nicola Bradbury

25 Henry James in France 416
Julie Wolkenstein

26 Henry James and Italy 434
Rosella Mamoli Zorzi

27 Henry James in the Public Sphere 456
Richard Salmon

28 James and Film 472
Susan M. Griffin

Index 490

About the author

Greg W. Zacharias is Professor of English and Director of the Center for Henry James Studies at Creighton University, USA. He is co-general editor with Pierre A. Walker of The Complete Letters of Henry James (2006& #8211) and Executive Director of the Henry James Society.