Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Q3139
Pam Thurschwell (p.thurschwell@sussex.ac.uk)
Office Hours TBA
To prepare for the course over the summer you should read one or both of our first two large
novels, The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Ambassadors (1903). If you manage both consider
the points of continuity and the differences between them, as exemplars of James’s middle and
late style. For our very first class you will need to have read two short stories, “Daisy Miller”
(1878) and “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903).
NOTE ABOUT EDITIONS: Henry James rewrote his earlier works extensively for the New
York edition of his novels and short stories that came out 1907-1909 toward the end of his life.
Because of this you will find different editions of James’s works differ from each other
according to whether they follow his earlier book version, the New York edition rewrites, or the
initial publication version (his longer novels were often published in installments in journals).
You are in safe hands if you stick to the Oxford World’s Classics editions for your texts. They
will contain a note on the text that will let you know how they’ve chosen to edit James. You need
to be aware of which version of James you have, and you must purchase/or have in your hands in
class an edition of James’s novels that contain the preface that he wrote to each novel for the
New York Edition. These are weird and interesting texts in their own right and we will be
discussing them in class.
You might also want to dip into Leon Edel’s absorbing five volume biography of James. If
you’re in the Sussex area and looking for a day trip check out James’ house in Rye:
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-lambhouse
Rye is an absurdly adorable town, you’ll get a chance to get the feel for where James wrote many
of his late works, and you can see where his dog is buried.
Course Outline (dates to be filled in later. Some minor changes might occur.)
1) “Daisy Miller” (1878) and “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903) Introduction: What happens in
James? (What doesn’t happen in James?)
7) READING WEEK
9) The Turn of the Screw (1898) and the first half of What Maisie Knew (1897)
11) The Aspern Papers (1888) and “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896)
Contemporary reviews are great for understanding the context in which works are received:
Kevin J. Hayes, Henry James: The Contemporary Reviews (1996)
General collections:
Modern Critical Views: Henry James edited by Harold Bloom (1987)
A Companion to Henry James Studies edited by Daniel Mark Fogel (1993)
Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Ruth Yeazell (1994)
The Cambridge Companion to Henry James edited by Jonathan Freedman (1998)
*** (means I recommend this highly)
If you are interested in James’ contemporary legacy there has been a spate of recent novels
which either feature James as a character or are consciously Jamesian. The best, in my opinion,
are Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (2004); Colm Toibin, The Master (2005); Cynthia
Ozick’s short story, ‘Dictation’ in Dictation (2008), and Michiel Heyns, The Typewriter’s Tale
(2005).