A selective list of online literary criticism for the American-born, London-based novelist, short-story writer, literary critic, and autobiographer Henry James, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed sources
The Portrait of a Lady [1881]
Andres, Sophia. "Narrative Instability in The Portrait of a Lady: Isabel on the Edge of the Social." Explores the conflict in the novel between a stable, integrated past and an uncertain, tumultuous present. Journal of Narrative Technique 24, 1 (1994) pp 43-54 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Bazzanella, Dominic J.
"The Conclusion to The Portrait of a Lady Re-examined." American Literature 41, 4 (March 1969) pp 55-63 [jstor preview or purchase].
Donahue, Peter.
"Collecting as Ethos and Technique in The Portrait of a Lady." Studies in American Fiction 25, 1 (1997) pp 41-56 [sub ser, questia].
Fogel, Daniel Mark, ed. The Henry James Review 7, 2/3 (Winter/Spring 1986). The entire issue is devoted to The Portrait of a Lady [previews only, muse].
Friend, Joseph H.
"The Structure of The Portrait of a Lady." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 20, 1 (June 1965) pp 85-95 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Gilmore, Michael T.
"The Commodity World of The Portrait of a Lady." The New England Quarterly 59, 1 (March 1986) pp 51-74 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Hadella, Paul M.
"Rewriting Misogyny: The Portrait of a Lady and the Popular Fiction Debate." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 26, 3 (Spring 1994) pp 1-11 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Hendricks, Susan E.
"Henry James as Adapter: The Portrait of a Lady and Can You Forgive Her" [Anthony Trollope novel as source]. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 38, 1/2 (1984) pp 35-43 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Hodges, Laura F.
"Recognizing 'false notes': Musical Rhetoric in The Portrait of a Lady." Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 32, 4 (Dec. 1999) pp 1-17 [sub ser, questia].
Izzo, Donatella. "Setting a Free Woman Free: The Portrait(s) of a Lady." The Americanist: Warsaw Journal for the Study of the United States 22 (no date) pp 101-22. This entire edition of The Americanist is devoted to articles on Henry James.
Johnson, Patricia E.
"The Gendered Politics of the Gaze: Henry James and George Eliot" [The Portrait of a Lady and Eliot's Middlemarch]. Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 30, 1 (1997) pp 39-54 [sub ser, questia].
Laird, J.T.
"Cracks in Precious Objects: Aestheticism and Humanity in The Portrait of a Lady." The "conflict of the aesthetic and the moral in a highly civilized society," as a theme in James's novels. American Literature 52, 4 (Jan. 1981) pp 643-48 [jstor preview or purchase].
Niemtzow, Annette.
"Marriage and the New Woman in The Portrait of a Lady." American Literature 47, 3 (Nov. 1975) pp 377-95 [jstor preview or purchase].
Porte, Joel. New Essays on The Portrait of a Lady" (Cambridge UP 1990). A collection of critical articles by authorities on Henry James, includes Donatella Izzo's "The Portrait of a Lady and Modern Narrative," William Veeder's "The Portrait of a Lack," Beth Sharon Ash's "Frail Vessels and Vast Designs: A Psychoanalytic Portrait of Isabel Archer," Alfred Habegger's "The Fatherless Heroine and the Filial Son: Deep Background for The Portrait of a Lady" [ebook, chapter previews available].
The Bostonians [1886]
Bertonneau, Thomas F.
"Like Hypatia before the Mob: Desire, Resentment, and Sacrifice in The Bostonians." Anthropoetics 1, 1 (1995).
Moldstad, Mary Frew.
"Elizabeth Peabody Revisited." On Henry James's friendship with Elizabeth Peabody, who is thought to be the source for his character Miss Birdseye. The Henry James Review 9, 3 (Fall 1988) pp 209-11 [muse, preview].
Scudder, Horace Elisha.
"The Bostonians, by Henry James." A classic review from 1886, from the Atlantic Monthly.
Shaheen, Aaron. "'The Social Dusk of that Mysterious Democracy': Race, Sexology, and the New Woman in Henry James's The Bostonians." American Transcendental Quarterly 19, 4 (Dec. 2005) [questia sub ser, substantial preview].
The Princess Casamassima [1886]
Scanlan, Margaret. "'Terrorism and the Realistic Novel: Henry James and The Princess Casamassima." Scanlan argues that "The Princess Casamassima is an exemplary instance of realistic fiction that explores both the power of nineteenth-century ideology and the possibility of resisting it." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 34, 3(Fall 1992) pp 380-402.
JAMES'S SHORT STORIES
"The Middle Years" [1893]
"Introduction to 'The Middle Years.'" James wrote "The Middle Years" in 1893, the year he turned 50. For the previous ten years he had been casting around for a new approach. He had tried social realism . . .
Oates, Joyce Carol. "The Madness of Art: Henry James's 'The Middle Years.'" A wonderful analysis of this story, by another great writer of fiction. New Literary History 27, 2 (Spring 1996) pp 259-62 [free at jstor].
Westbrook, Perry D. "The Supersubtle Fry." Perry Westbrook contends that the story is not about Dencombe's perfectionism, but a satire on the perfectionist's egotism. Such a reading changes one's view of James himself as a self-pitying, depressed author to "a man big enough to make fun of his own foibles as they are projected onto Dencombe." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 8, 2 (Sept. 1953) pp 134-40 [free at jstor].
"The Figure in the Carpet" [1896]
Wilson, Raymond J.
"The Possibility of Realism: 'The Figure in the Carpet' and Hawthorne's Intertext." Wilson contends that Hawthorne's use of image of the figure-in-the carpet in his preface to The Scarlet Letter, along with Henry James's response to it in his tale, is at the heart of the American debate about whether fiction reveals truth about reality, and that James's position is that it does. The Henry James Review 16, 2 (Spring 1995) pp 142-52 [muse, preview].
Salmon, Rachel.
"A Marriage of Opposites: Henry James's 'The Figure in the Carpet' and the Problem of Ambiguity." ELH 47, 4 (Winter 1980) pp 788-803
[free at jstor].
LeStourgeon, Diane E.; and Homer Nearing, Jr.
"The Swedenborgian Figure in the Carpet: Henry James's Critical Point of View." Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 7, 4 (Winter 1975) pp 328-41 [free at jstor].
The Spoils of Poynton [1897]
Baym, Nina. "Fleda Vetch and the Plot of The Spoils of Poynton." PMLA 84, 1 (Jan. 1969) [click "Read Online Free," jstor].
Broderick, John C. "Nature, Art, and Imagination in The Spoils of Poynton." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13, 4 (March 1959) pp 295-312 [click "Read Online Free," jstor].
Faulkner, Carol. "Reconsidering Poynton's Innocent Patriarch." Article focuses on "the situation of the mother deposed by the ugly English custom, turned out of the big house on the son's marriage and relegated." The Henry James Review 15, 2 (Spring 1994) pp 141-51 [preview only, muse].
Greene, Philip L. "Point of View in The Spoils of Poynton." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 21, 4 (March 1967) pp 359-368 [click "Read Online Free," jstor].
Lyons, Richard S. "The Social Vision of The Spoils of Poynton." American Literature 61, 1 (March 1989) pp 59-77 [jstor preview or purchase].
What Maisie Knew [1897]
Armstrong, Paul B.
"How Maisie Knows: The Phenomenology of James's Moral Vision." "Nowhere in his canon," says Armstrong, "do James the epistemological novelist and James the moral dramatist combine forces more powerfully than in What Maisie Knew. In Texas Studies in Literature and Language 20, 4 (Winter 1978) pp 517-37 [free at jstor].
Britzolakis, Christina.
"Technologies of vision in Henry James's What Maisie Knew." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 34, 3 (Summer 2001) [preview or purchase at jstor].
Derail-Imbert, Agnès. "French as the Fantasmal Idiom of Truth in What Maisie Knew." In Henry James's Europe. Open Book Publishers, 2011 [free online].
Habegger, Alfred.
"Reciprocity and the Market Place in The Wings of the Dove and What Maisie Knew." On the moral sense in James's fiction. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 25, 4 (March 1971) pp 455-73 [free at jstor].
Heller, Lee E. "The Paradox of the Individual Triumph: Instrumentality and the Family in What Maisie Knew." In South Atlantic Review 53, 4 (Nov. 1988) pp 77-85 [free at jstor].
Marotta, Kenny. "What Maisie Knew: The Question of Our Speech." ELH 46, 3 (Autumn 1979) pp 495-508 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Nance, William L. "What Maisie Knew: The Myth of the Artist."
Studies in the Novel 8, 1 (Spring 1976) [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Smit, David. "The Wishful Fantasy of What Maisie Knew." In
American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 29, 3 (Spring 1997) pp 1-14 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Snyder, John.
"James's Girl Huck: What Maisie Knew." Contends that Maisie is the closest thing to a girl version of Huck Finn as exists in American literature [Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]. In American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 11, 1 (Spring 1978) [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Teahan, Sheila.
"What Maisie Knew and the improper third person." Studies in American Fiction 1993 [questia sub ser, substantial preview].
Westover, Jeff. "Handing Over Power in James's
What Maisie Knew." In Style 28, 2 (Summer 1994) [questia sub ser, substantial preview].
Wolk, Merla. "Narration and Nurture in What Maisie Knew." In The Henry James Review 4, 3 (Spring 1983) pp 196-206 [preview, muse].
Worden, Ward S. "Henry James's What Maisie Knew: A Comparison with the Plans in the Notebooks." In PMLA 53, 4 (June 1953) pp 371-83 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
The Turn of the Screw [1898]
Klein, Marcus. "Convention and Chaos in The Turn of the Screw." Hudson Review 59, 4 (Winter 2007) [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Sawyer, Richard. "'What's your title?' - 'The Turn of the Screw.'" How James directs the reader's expectations of "a ghost story" in his preface to The Turn of the Screw. Studies in Short Fiction, Jan. 1993 [questia sub ser].
Wesley, Marilyn C. "The Remembered Future: Neuro-cognitive Identity in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw." College Literature 2004 [preview or purchase at jstor].
Other Late Novels
Jöttkandt, Sigi.
"Hysteria, Metaphor and the Ethics of Desire in The Wings of the Dove." [The Wings of the Dove 1902]. On social and ethical approaches to The Wings of the Dove. Henry James Society.
Miyabe, Kyoko. "Milly Theale and the Two Paintings in The Wings of the Dove." Henry James Society.
Simon, Linda.
"The Empowered Physician: William Wilberforce Baldwin and 19th Century Medical Therapeutics." On Sir Luke, the physician in The Wings of the Dove, and his real life model. Henry James Society.
Hadley, Tessa Jane.
"French Words in The Ambassadors." [The Ambassadors 1903]. Henry James Society.
Bertonneau, Thomas F. "'The Mysteries of Mimicry': Sublimity and Morality in
The Golden Bowl." [The Golden Bowl 1904]. Anthropoetics 4, 2 (1998/1999).
Frølund, Gro.
"Seven Golden Bowls Full of the Wrath of God." Power and authority in The Golden Bowl. Henry James Society.
James & Other Authors
De Biasio, Anna.
"The Copies Outstrip the 'Originals': Artistic Representations from The Marble Faun to The Wings of the Dove" [and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun]. Henry James Society.
Fay, Eliot G. "Balzac and Henry James." The French Review 24, 4 (1951) pp 325-30 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Gargano, James W. "Henry James on Baudelaire." Discusses James's 1876 article on Baudelaire for the Nation. Modern Language Notes 75, 7 (Nov. 1960) pp 559-61 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].
Hays, Peter L.
"Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and James's The Ambassadors."
Brooks, Peter. Realist Vision (2005) Yale Univ. Press.