Henry James

Henry James (1843–1916) was an American-born British writer widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the English language and a key figure in the transition from literary realism to modernism. Born in New York City into a wealthy intellectual family—his elder brother was the philosopher William James—James spent most of his adult life in Europe, settling in England and becoming a British citizen in 1915.

His fiction is celebrated for its psychological depth, intricate prose style, and the famous technique of filtering events through a limited central consciousness. James masterfully explored themes of morality, perception, and the confrontation between American innocence and European sophistication.

His major works include the novels The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and the three final masterpieces The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904). He also wrote the acclaimed novellas Daisy Miller (1878) and Washington Square (1880), the chilling ghost story The Turn of the Screw (1898), and the influential essay "The Art of Fiction" (1884).

Nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, James received the Order of Merit in 1916, leaving an enduring legacy on the development of the modern novel.