Henry James (New York, 1843 – London, 1916) was an Irish-American author and literary critic.
While still a child, he realised that literature was his life’s calling.

During his life he often travelled back and forth between America and Europe, staying for long periods in France, England and Italy. This gave him to chance to become close friends with many famous European intellectuals and authors of the day, including Turghenev, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Meredith, Huxley and others.

His most important works are The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1879), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1888), The Awkward Age (1899) and The Golden Bowl (1904). His novels show a close and sharp observation of the workings of the human soul.
James himself felt a constant conflict with the places he lived in: The Portrait of a Lady was written during his stay in Venice and reflects his feelings, symbolising the conflict between the innocence of a young America and the dangerous sophistication of Europe.

Other tales concerning Venice are his The Wings of the Dove (1902), a major novel with supreme symbolic tension; Italian Hours (1909), a travelogue, with a brilliant description of this city much loved and known to the author; The Aspern Papers (1888), where Venice is the setting for the character’s tortuous self-doubt.

1800 - 2000 - - rev. 0.1.5