Henry James: Novels 1901-1902: The Sacred Fount / The Wings of the Dove - Hardcover

James, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 193108288X ISBN 13: 9781931082884

Publisher: Library of America, 2006

Synopsis

This Library of America volume brings together The Sacred Fount (1901), one of Henry James’s most unusual experiments, and The Wings of the Dove (1902), one of his most beloved masterpieces and the novel that inaugurated the majestic and intricate “late phase” of his literary career.

Writing to his friend William Dean Howells, James characterized The Sacred Fount, the only one of his novels to be told in the first person, as “a fine flight into the high fantastic.” While traveling to the country house of Newmarch for a weekend party, the nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that a person may become younger or cleverer by tapping the “sacred fount” of another person. Convinced that Grace Brissenden has become younger by drawing upon her husband, Guy, the narrator seeks to discover the source of the newfound wit of Gilbert Long, previously “a fine piece of human furniture.” His perplexing and ambiguous quest, and the varying reactions it provokes from the other guests, calls into question the imaginative inquiry central to James’s art of the novel.

James described the essential idea of The Wings of the Dove as “a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world.” The heroine, a wealthy young American heiress, Milly Theale (inspired by James’s beloved cousin Minny Temple), is slowly drawn into a trap set for her by the English adventuress Kate Croy and her lover, the journalist Morton Densher. The unexpected outcome of their mercenary scheme provides the resolution to a tragic story of love and betrayal, innocence and experience that has long been acknowledged as one of James’s supreme achievements as a novelist. This volume prints the New York Edition text of The Wings of the Dove, and includes the illuminating preface James wrote for that edition.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

HENRY JAMES: NOVELS 1901-1902
Leo Bersani, editor

This fifth volume in the Library of America edition of the complete novels of Henry James brings together one of his most unusual works with one of his most beloved masterpieces. James characterized The Sacred Fount, the only one of his novels to be told in the first person, as "a fine flight into the high fantastic." Its nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that a person may tap into the "sacred fount" of another person, and pursues his insight with a perplexing and ambiguous persistence. A tragic tale of innocence and experience that has long been acclaimed as one of James's supreme achievements as a novelist, The Wings of the Dove depicts the entanglement of the fatally ill Milly Theale, a wealthy young American heiress, with the English adventuress Kate Croy and her lover, the worldly journalist Morton Densher, in an intricate and ultimately devastating scheme of love and betrayal.

About the Author:

Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines.

In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907).

During his career he also wrote many works of criticism and travel. Although old and ailing, he threw himself into war work in 1914, and in 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject. In 1916 King George V conferred the Order of Merit on him. He died in London in February 1916.

About this edition

• Publisher: Library of America
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 193108288X
• ISBN 13: 9781931082884
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 713
• Editor: Bersani Leo