Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classi - Henry James [3]
1880- 1881 The focus of James’s writing shifts to social and psychological drama. Washington Square is serialized in Cornhill Magazine and Harper’s (1880) and released in book form (1881); the novel concerns a young American woman whose father rejects the man she wants to marry. The Portrait of a Lady is serialized in Macmillan’s Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly (1880-1881), and in book form (1881); this brilliant novel depicts a young American woman who out of a kind of generosity marries the wrong man. James vows “never again to return” to New York, in a fit of disdain over the way the city’s “oppressive” economic growth has lowered the quality of life.
1882 James travels to Washington, D.C., where he briefly meets Oscar Wilde.
1886 James publishes the first novels of his middle period: The Bostonians, the story of a struggle between a southern conservative and an embittered suffragist, and The Princess Casamassima, an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking up anarchism and revolution.
1888 James publishes the short novel The Aspern Papers, about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes.
1889 Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of The Bostonians, James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years.
Casamassima, an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking anarchism and revolution.
1888 up James publishes the short novel The Aspern Papers, about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes.
1889 Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of The Bostonians, James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years.
1890 He publishes The Tragic Muse, about art and theater in London and Paris. His brother William publishes his groundbreaking and influential Principles of Psychology, in which pragmatism and “radical empiricism” are key elements.
1891 James’s dramatization of The American fares moderately well.
1892 After a life beset by illness, Alice James dies in England, with Henry at her side.
1895 James’s first dramatic work written as such, Guy Domville, is booed by the opening-night audience and receives mostly negative reviews, though George Bernard Shaw praises it. After little success with playwriting, James returns to writing fiction. The United States increases its involvement in a conflict between Spain and Cuba, which wants independence from Spanish rule. James opposes this involvement, calling it “none of our business.”
1897 He publishes What Maisie Knew, the story of a preadolescent girl who must chose between her parents and a governess.
1898 James publishes the ghost story The Turn of the Screw. He purchases Lamb House, in Rye, England, where he will write his last novels and letters. The Spanish-American War takes place.
1900 During the final stage of his writing career, James’s style becomes increasingly complex and convoluted. Over the next few years, he produces what are often considered his greatest works.
1902 He publishes The Wings of the Dove, about a group of people who scheme to inherit a dying woman’s fortune.
1903 The Ambassadors, about an American suspicious of European
ways who is won over by life in Paris, is published, as is “The Beast in the Jungle,” a story of a man who believes he is intended for something remarkable. In London, James meets Edith Wharton.
1904 His novel of adultery The Golden Bowl is published. He travels to the United States to oversee the production of a revised collection of his most important works of fiction.
1907 James publishes The American Scene, his observations on what America has become. Publication of the twenty-six volumes of the revised fiction collection, The Novels and Tales of Henry James, begins; it will continue until 1917.
1908 James publishes the story “The Jolly Corner,” an oblique commentary on the America he has left behind.
1910 In January James becomes very ill. He is nursed by his brother William and William’s wife, Alice, and the three return to North America. William, also ill, dies shortly thereafter. James visits New York, where he receives psychiatric care.