Short Stories by Henry James

For devotees of the short story, we've just launched several explanatory guides to the work of Henry James. Actually, the stories are not short by modern standards, but they have the distinction of all being very good. The Best in the Jungle is quite well known. It's about a man who has a presentiment that something momentous lies ahead for him in life, but he doesn't know what it will be. Not so well known, but amazingly contemporary in its relevance is The Papers which concerns, would you believe, journalists making up stories for newspapers to generate publicity for would-be celebrities. Four Meetings is an almost tragic tale of a gullible American schoolteacher who has a dream of seeing Europe but is conned out of it by an unscrupulous relative. Two stories are about women in relation to ships. In Pandora a spirited young American woman tweaks the nose of a young German diplomat who she meets on a cross-Atlantic liner, whilst in The Patagonia a similar young woman throws herself overboard rather than meet the man to whom she is going to be married. The Bench of Desolation is not nearly so gloomy as its title suggests, Fordham Castle is a story of an advanced form of social climbing - by pretending to be somebody else - and Daisy Miller is another of his acknowledged masterpieces about Americans in Europe, with the eponymous Daisy breaking social taboos at a cost to herself. Every one a gem, and a tribute to an author known to other writers simply as 'The Master'.

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton is one of the most unjustly neglected writers of the early modernist period. She was a close friend of Henry James, and even wrote somewhat in his style, but her reputation has not survived as well as his, even though she was a best-selling novelist in her time. We've made a modest effort to rectify this situation from a UK perspective by featuring an impressive biography, as well as creating study guides to her greatest novels The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and The Custom of the Country, as well as her devastatingly powerful novella, Ethan Frome.

Edith Wharton - An Illustrated Biography

Edith wharton sure did have it all. She was born of rich parents; she lived in Italy and France as a young girl, and picked up the languages. Married young to rich and handsome husband. Wrote novels - which became best-sellers. Was friends with Henry James, Bernard Berenson, and met Serge Diaghilev. Had love affair: got divorced. Won the Legion of Honour for her work in the first world war. Established large houses and gardens outside Paris and in Provence. Became an expert on garden and interior design. Wrote more best-sellers. And lived until nearly eighty. What's more, her writiting is funny, and very good. More here

The Awakening and Other Stories

Kate Chopin was an American writer who is now best known for her novel The Awakening (1899) which was 're-discovered' in the 1960s. But in fact she was a professional and quite successful author in her own lifetime who earned part of her living by placing her short stories with magazines. Her stories embrace the modern tradition, created in the late nineteenth century, of describing situations or dramatic episodes, then leaving them to speak for themselves. Without doubt she was what many people would call 'ahead of her time'. It is no surprise that with the reassertion of women's rightful place in cultural history which occurred in the 1960s, she was seen as an unjustly neglected figure. And reading her stories today, it's amazing how fresh and modern they seem, My guess is that she will now retain her place in the literary canon... Read more >>

more SHORT STORIES here

John Updike (1932-2009)

Despite the fact that he wrote with a stylish turn of phrase; despite the fact that he wrote an enormous amount; and despite the fact that he was so popular in his own lifetime, I suspect that John Updike, who died today, will now suffer the same slow loss of critical reputation as his formerly highly-rated predecessors Hemingway, Faulkner, and Mailer. The more interesting question is, whose critical reputation will rise, to fill the space vacated?