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 Contents:
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