Henry James

by Henry James

  1870–72

  Returns to Cambridge in May. Travels to Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York to write travel sketches for The Nation. Spends a few days with Emerson in Concord. Meets Bret Harte at Howells’s home April 1871. Watch and Ward, his first novel, published in Atlantic Monthly (Aug.–Dec. 1871). Serves as occasional art reviewer for the Atlantic, January–March 1872.

  1872–74

  Accompanies Aunt Kate and sister Alice on tour of England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Germany from May through October. Writes travel sketches for The Nation. Spends autumn in Paris, becoming friends with James Russell Lowell. Escorts Emerson through the Louvre. (Later, on Emerson’s return from Egypt, will show him the Vatican.) Goes to Florence in December and from there to Rome, where he becomes friends with actress Fanny Kemble, her daughter Sarah Butler Wister, and William Wetmore Story and his family. In Italy sees old family friend Francis Boott and his daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie), expatriates who have lived for many years in Florentine villa at Bellosguardo. Takes up horseback riding on the Campagna. Encounters Matthew Arnold in April 1873 at Story’s. Moves from Rome hotel to rooms of his own. Continues writing and now earns enough to support himself. Leaves Rome in June, spends summer in Bad Homburg. In October goes to Florence, where William joins him. They also visit Rome, William returning to America in March. In Baden-Baden (June–August) and returns to America on September 4, with Roderick Hudson all but finished.

  1875

  Roderick Hudson serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January (published by Osgood at the end of the year). A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales published January 31. Tries living and writing in New York, in rooms at 111 E. 25th St. Earns $200 a month from novel installments and continues reviewing, but finds New York too expensive. Transatlantic Sketches, published in April, sells almost 1,000 copies in three months. In Cambridge in July decides to return to Europe; arranges with John Hay, assistant to the publisher, to write Paris letters for the New-York Tribune.

  1875–76

  Arriving in Paris in November, he takes rooms at 29 Rue de Luxembourg (since renamed Cambon). Becomes friend of Ivan Turgenev and is introduced by him to Gustave Flaubert’s Sunday parties. Meets Edmond de Goncourt, Émile Zola, G. Charpentier (the publisher), Catulle Mendès, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Renan, Gustave Doré. Makes friends with Charles Sanders Peirce, who is in Paris. Reviews (unfavorably) the early Impressionists at the Durand-Ruel gallery. By midsummer has received $400 for Tribune pieces, but editor asks for more Parisian gossip and James resigns. Travels in France during July, visiting Normandy and the Midi, and in September crosses to San Sebastian, Spain, to see a bullfight (“I thought the bull, in any case, a finer fellow than any of his tormentors”). Moves to London in December, taking rooms at 3 Bolton St., Piccadilly, where he will live for the next decade.

  1877

  The American published. Meets Robert Browning and George du Maurier. Leaves London in midsummer for visit to Paris and then goes to Italy. In Rome rides again in Campagna and hears of an episode that inspires “Daisy Miller.” Back in England, spends Christmas at Stratford with Fanny Kemble.

  1878

  Publishes first book in England, French Poets and Novelists (Macmillan). Appearance of “Daisy Miller” in Cornhill Magazine, edited by Leslie Stephen, is international success, but by publishing it abroad loses American copyright and story is pirated in the United States. Cornhill also prints “An International Episode.” The Europeans is serialized in Atlantic. Now a celebrity, he dines out often, visits country houses, gains weight, takes long walks, fences, and does weight lifting to reduce. Elected to Reform Club. Meets Tennyson, George Meredith, and James McNeill Whistler. William marries Alice Howe Gibbens.

  1879

  Immersed in London society (“dined out during the past winter 107 times!”). Meets Edmund Gosse and Robert Louis Stevenson, who will later become his close friends. Sees much of Henry Adams and his wife, Marian (Clover), in London and later in Paris. Takes rooms in Paris, September–December. Confidence is serialized in Scribner’s and published by Chatto & Windus. Hawthorne appears in Macmillan’s “English Men of Letters” series.

  1880–81

  Stays in Florence (March–May) to work on The Portrait of a Lady. Meets Constance Fenimore Woolson, American novelist and grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper. Returns to Bolton Street in June, where William visits him. Washington Square serialized in Cornhill Magazine and published in the United States by Harper & Brothers (Dec. 1880). The Portrait of a Lady serialized in Macmillan’s Magazine (Oct. 1880–Nov. 1881) and Atlantic Monthly; published by Macmillan and Houghton, Mifflin (Nov. 1881). Publication both in United States and in England yields him the then-large income of $500 a month, though book sales are disappointing. Leaves London in February for Paris, the south of France, the Italian Riviera, and Venice, and returns to London in July. Sister Alice visits with her friend Katharine Loring. James goes to Scotland in September.

  1881–83

  In November revisits America after absence of six years. Lionized in New York. Returns to Quincy Street for Christmas and sees ailing brother Wilky for the first time in ten years. In January visits Washington and Henry and Clover Adams and meets President Chester A. Arthur. Summoned to Cambridge by mother’s death, January 29 (“the sweetest, gentlest, most beneficent human being I have ever known”). All four brothers are together for the first time in fifteen years at her funeral. Alice and father move from Cambridge to Boston. Prepares a stage version of “Daisy Miller” and returns to England in May. William, now a Harvard professor, comes to Europe in September. Proposed by Leslie Stephen, James becomes member, without the usual red tape, of the Atheneum Club. Travels in France in October to write A Little Tour in France (published 1884) and has last visit with Turgenev, who is dying. Returns to England in December and learns of father’s illness. Sails for America but Henry James Sr. dies December 18, 1882, before his arrival. Made executor of father’s will. Visits brothers Wilky and Bob in Milwaukee in January. Quarrels with William over division of property—James wants to restore Wilky’s share. Macmillan publishes a collected pocket edition of James’s novels and tales in fourteen volumes. Siege of London and Portraits of Places published. Returns to Bolton Street in September. Wilky dies in November. Constance Fenimore Woolson comes to London for the winter.

  1884–86

  Goes to Paris in February and visits Daudet, Zola, and Goncourt. Again impressed with their intense concern with “art, form, manner” but calls them “mandarins.” Meets John Singer Sargent and persuades him to settle in London. Returns to Bolton Street. Sargent introduces him to young Paul Bourget. During country visits encounters many British political and social figures, including W. E. Gladstone, John Bright, and Charles Dilke. Alice, suffering from nervous ailment, arrives in England for visit in November but is too ill to travel and settles near her brother. Tales of Three Cities (“The Impressions of a Cousin,” “Lady Barberina,” “A New England Winter”) and “The Art of Fiction” published in 1884. Alice goes to Bournemouth in late January. James joins her in May and becomes an intimate of Robert Louis Stevenson, who resides nearby. Spends August at Dover and is visited by Bourget. Stays in Paris for the next two months. Alice takes rooms in London in the fall of 1885. James moves into a flat at 34 De Vere Gardens in Kensington in early March 1886. The Bostonians serialized in Century (Feb. 1885–Feb. 1886; published 1886), The Princess Casamassima serialized in Atlantic Monthly (Sept. 1885–Oct. 1886; published 1886).

  1886–87

  Leaves for Italy in December for extended stay, mainly in Florence and Venice. Sees much of Constance Fenimore Woolson and stays in her villa. Writes “The Aspern Papers” and other tales. Returns to De Vere Gardens in July and begins work on The Tragic Muse. Pays several country visits. Dines out less often (“I know it all—all that one sees by ‘going out’—today, as if I had made it. But if I had, I would have made it better!”).

  1888

&
nbsp; The Reverberator, The Aspern Papers, Louisa Pallant, The Modern Warning, and Partial Portraits published. Elizabeth Boott Duveneck dies. Robert Louis Stevenson leaves for the South Seas. Engages fencing teacher to combat “symptoms of a portentous corpulence.” Goes abroad in October to Geneva (where he visits Woolson), Genoa, Monte Carlo, and Paris.

  1889–90

  Catharine Walsh (Aunt Kate) dies in March 1889. William comes to England to visit Alice in August. James goes to Dover in September and then to Paris for five weeks. Writes account of Robert Browning’s funeral in Westminster Abbey. Dramatizes The American for the Compton Comedy Company. Meets and becomes close friends with American journalist William Morton Fullerton and young American publisher Wolcott Balestier. Goes to Italy for the summer, staying in Venice and Florence, and takes a brief walking tour in Tuscany with W. W. Baldwin, an American physician practicing in Florence. Woolson moves to Cheltenham, England, to be near James. Atlantic Monthly rejects his story “The Pupil,” but it appears in England in April 1891. Writes series of drawing-room comedies for theater. Meets Rudyard Kipling. The Tragic Muse serialized in Atlantic Monthly (Jan. 1889–May 1890; published 1890). A London Life (including “The Patagonia,” “The Liar,” “Mrs. Temperly”) published in 1889.

  1891

  The American produced at Southport is a success during road tour. After residence in Leamington, Alice returns to London, cared for by Katharine Loring. Doctors discover she has breast cancer. James circulates comedies (Mrs. Vibert, later called Tenants, and Mrs. Jasper, later named Disengaged) among theater managers who are cool to his work. Unimpressed at first by Ibsen, writes an appreciative review after seeing a performance of Hedda Gabler with Elizabeth Robins, a young Kentucky actress; persuades her to take the part of Mme. de Cintré in the London production of The American. Recuperates from flu in Ireland. James Russell Lowell dies. The American opens in London, September 26, and runs for seventy nights. Wolcott Balestier dies, and James attends his funeral in Dresden in December.

  1892

  Alice James dies on March 6. James travels to Siena to be near the Paul Bourgets, and Venice (June–July) to visit the Daniel Curtises, then to Lausanne to meet William and his family, who have come abroad for his sabbatical. Attends funeral of Tennyson at Westminster Abbey. Augustin Daly agrees to produce Mrs. Jasper. The American continues to be performed on the road by Edward Compton. The Lesson of the Master (with a collection of stories including “The Marriages,” “The Pupil,” “Brooksmith,” “The Solution,” and “Sir Edmund Orme”) published.

  1893

  Fanny Kemble dies in January. Continues to write unproduced plays. In March goes to Paris for two months. Sends Compton first act and scenario for Guy Domville. Meets William and family in Lucerne and stays a month, returning to London in June. Spends July completing Guy Domville in Ramsgate. George Alexander, actor-manager, agrees to produce the play. Daly stages first reading of Mrs. Jasper, and James withdraws it, calling the rehearsal a mockery. The Real Thing and Other Tales (including “The Wheel of Time,” “Lord Beaupré,” “The Visit”) published.

  1894

  Constance Fenimore Woolson dies in Venice, January. Shocked and upset, James prepares to attend funeral in Rome but changes his mind on learning she is a suicide. Goes to Venice in April to help her family settle her affairs. Receives one of four copies, privately printed by Loring, of Alice’s diary. Finds it impressive but is concerned that so much gossip he told Alice in private has been included (later burns his copy). Robert Louis Stevenson dies in Samoa. Guy Domville goes into rehearsal. Theatricals: Two Comedies and Theatricals: Second Series published.

  1895

  Guy Domville opens January 5 at St. James’s Theatre in London. At play’s end James is greeted by a fifteen-minute roar of boos, catcalls, and applause. Horrified and depressed, abandons the theater. Play earns him $1,300 after five-week run. Feels he can salvage something useful from playwriting for his fiction (“a key that, working in the same general way fits the complicated chambers of both the dramatic and the narrative lock”). Writes scenario for The Spoils of Poynton. Visits Lord Wolseley and Lord Houghton in Ireland. In the summer goes to Torquay in Devon and stays until November while electricity is being installed in De Vere Gardens flat. Begins friendship with W. E. Norris, who resides at Torquay. Writes a one-act play (“Mrs. Gracedew”) at request of Ellen Terry. Terminations (containing “The Death of the Lion,” “The Coxon Fund,” “The Middle Years,” “The Altar of the Dead”) published.

  1896–97

  Finishes The Spoils of Poynton (serialized in Atlantic Monthly April–Oct. 1896 as The Old Things; published 1897). Embarrassments (“The Figure in the Carpet,” “Glasses,” “The Next Time,” “The Way It Came”) published. Takes a house on Point Hill, Playden, opposite the old town of Rye, Sussex, for August–September. Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford) visits him. Converts play The Other House into novel and works on What Maisie Knew (published Sept. 1897). George du Maurier dies early in October. Because of increasing pain in wrist, hires stenographer William MacAlpine in February and then purchases a typewriter; soon begins direct dictation to MacAlpine at the machine. Invites Joseph Conrad to lunch at De Vere Gardens, beginning their friendship. Goes to Bournemouth in July. Serves on jury in London before going to Dunwich, Suffolk, to spend time with Temple-Emmet cousins. In late September 1897 signs a twenty-one-year lease for Lamb House in Rye for £70 a year ($350). Takes on extra work to pay for setting up his house and writes the life of William Wetmore Story ($1,250 advance) and will furnish an “American Letter” for new magazine Literature (precursor of Times Literary Supplement) for $200 a month. Howells visits.

  1898

  “The Turn of the Screw” (serialized in Collier’s Jan.–April; published with “Covering End” under the title The Two Magics) proves his most popular work since “Daisy Miller.” Sleeps in Lamb House for first time on June 28. Soon after is visited by William’s son, Henry James Jr. (Harry), followed by a stream of visitors: future Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Annie Adams Fields, Sarah Orne Jewett, Paul Bourget, Edward Warren, Daniel Curtis and Ariana Curtis, Edmund Gosse, and Howard Sturgis. His witty friend Jonathan Sturges, a young, crippled New Yorker, stays for two months during autumn. In the Cage published. Meets neighbors Stephen Crane and H. G. Wells.

  1899

  Finishes The Awkward Age and plans trip to the Continent. Fire in Lamb House delays departure. To Paris in March and then visits the Paul Bourgets at Hyères. Stays with the Curtises in their Venice palazzo, where he meets and becomes friends with Jessie Allen. In Rome meets young American-Norwegian sculptor Hendrik C. Andersen; buys one of his busts. Returns to England in July and Andersen comes for three days in August. William, his wife, Alice, and daughter, Peggy, arrive at Lamb House in October. First meeting of brothers in six years. William now has confirmed heart condition. James B. Pinker becomes literary agent and for first time James’s professional relations are systematically organized; he reviews copyrights, finds new publishers, and obtains better prices for work (“the germ of a new career”). Purchases Lamb House for $10,000 with an easy mortgage.

  1900

  Unhappy at whiteness of beard which he has worn since the Civil War, he shaves it off. Alternates between Rye and London. Begins The Sacred Fount. Works on and then sets aside The Sense of the Past (never finished). Begins The Ambassadors. The Soft Side, a collection of twelve tales, published. Niece Peggy comes to Lamb House for Christmas.

  1901

  Obtains permanent room at the Reform Club for London visits and spends eight weeks in town. Sees funeral of Queen Victoria. Decides to employ a typist, Mary Weld, to replace the more expensive overqualified shorthand stenographer, MacAlpine. Completes The Ambassadors and begins The Wings of the Dove. The Sacred Fount published. Has meeting with George Gissing. William James, much improved, returns home after two years in Europe. Young Cambridge admirer Percy Lubbock visits. Discharges his alcoholic servants of sixteen years (t
he Smiths). Mrs. Paddington becomes new housekeeper.

  1902

  In London for the winter but gout and stomach disorder force him home earlier. Finishes The Wings of the Dove (published in August). William James Jr. (Billy) visits in October and becomes a favorite nephew. Writes “The Beast in the Jungle” and “The Birthplace.”

  1903

  The Ambassadors, The Better Sort (a collection of eleven tales), and William Wetmore Story and His Friends published. After another spell in town, returns to Lamb House in May and begins work on The Golden Bowl. Meets and establishes close friendship with Dudley Jocelyn Persse, a nephew of Lady Gregory. First meeting with Edith Wharton in December.

  1904–5

  Completes The Golden Bowl (published Nov. 1904). Rents out Lamb House for six months, and sails in August for America after twenty-year absence. Sees new Manhattan skyline from New Jersey on arrival and stays with Colonel George Harvey, president of Harper’s, in Jersey shore house with Mark Twain as fellow guest. Goes to William’s country house at Chocorua in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. Reexplores Cambridge, Boston, Salem, Newport, and Concord, where he visits brother Bob. In October stays with Edith Wharton in the Berkshires and motors with her through Massachusetts and New York. Later visits New York City, Philadelphia (where he delivers lecture “The Lesson of Balzac”), and then Washington, D.C., as a guest in Henry Adams’s house. Meets (and is critical of) President Theodore Roosevelt. Returns to Philadelphia to lecture at Bryn Mawr. Travels to Richmond, Charleston, Jacksonville, Palm Beach, and St. Augustine. Then lectures in St. Louis, Chicago, South Bend, Indianapolis, Los Angeles (with a short vacation at Coronado Beach near San Diego), San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Returns to explore New York City (“the terrible town”), May–June. Lectures on “The Question of Our Speech” at Bryn Mawr commencement. Elected to newly founded American Academy of Arts and Letters (William declines). Returns to England in July; lectures had more than covered expenses of his trip. Begins revision of novels for the New York Edition.