小説家・批評家としての活動を通じ、男女の関係、性の問題、現代性の本質、相対主義の脅威、大衆文化の台頭、芸術の役割といった人にとって重要な問題や経験に取り組んだ米文学の巨匠ヘンリー・ジェイムズ（1843-1916年）。『ワシントン・スクエア』『ヨーロッパ人』『デイジー・ミラー』『ある婦人の肖像』『黄金の盃』『ねじの回転』等の代表作を取り上げ、複雑で難解と評されるその作品の魅力を時代背景や作家の伝記的事項も踏まえて解説します。(cf. Washington Square / The Europeans / Daisy Miller / The Portrait of a Lady / The Golden Bowl / The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) その他の作品も同シリーズより発売中）
 

• Presents a famously difficult author in an intriguing and accessible way
• Gives a broad picture of the life and work of Henry James
• Discusses James's significant literary and cultural impact

  
An elegant introduction to one of America's most complex and influential writers.
  
From his childhood in a family of leading American intellectuals through his mature life as a major American man of letters, Henry James (1843-1916) created a unique body of fiction that represents one of the greatest achievements in the nation's literary history. James's transnational life in the US and England and his extraordinary siblings (the philosopher William James and diarist Alice James) made his life as complicated as the fictions he produced. In this elegant introduction to the work of Henry James, Susan L. Mizruchi places the notoriously difficult and obscure writings in their historical and biographical context.
  
As James grew in confidence as a writer, his fictions evolved accordingly. These complex accounts of human experience engage with the vital issues of both James's era and our own. Among the works treated in this introduction are Washington Square, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, and The Turn of the Screw. Through his novels, as well as his journalistic and critical endeavors, James explores themes related to gender relations, human sexuality, the nature of modernity, the threat of relativism, the rise of mass culture, and the role of art.
  
Since their creation, James's writings have been a consistent subject of both literary theory and popular culture, receiving a diverse array of theoretical treatments, from formalism, deconstruction, phenomenology, and pragmatism to Marxism, new historicism, and gender and queer theory. James's novels have been adapted into numerous films by directors including William Wyler, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Winner, Merchant/Ivory, and Jane Campion. The impact of Henry James cannot be overstated.