Henry James

Im hoping to read some more American classic novels, some of which I have not looked at for years. One of the best known American authors is Henry James who was born in New York in 1843. His family were very rich on both sides, and his father was a gentleman of leisure. They were of Scottish and Irish descent. The family travelled to Europe when Henry was a child and he was educated by a tutor. They retrurned to America, but Henry had a bad back which meant he was unfit for service in the American Civil war. He studied law for a time but his chief interest was in literature and he mixed with writers and arists. His brother William studied medicine and became a psychologist. Henry went to Paris in the 1870s and stayed in Europe for most of the next 30 years. He spent time in England where he made friends and wrote his first novels. Now settled in Europe he was influenced by French writers such as Zola. His books tended to be about the conflict between the naive and innocent Americans, and the more subtle and often decadent Europeans. The Portrait of a Lady is about a naive American girl Isabel, who marries a European nobleman and finds that he does not love her. More Will Follow.