Description
James's friendship with Constance Fenimore Woolson ended in 1894 when he tried to drown a boatload of her dresses in the Venetian lagoon; she had fallen to her death three months before. It was an elusive friendship that echoed his mysterious relationship with Minny Temple who had died twenty years earlier. From their graves, these two women haunted his imagination and his fiction, inspiring the creation of his heroines.
Told through the lense of Henry James's relationship with two women who particularly shaped his writing, Henry James is a unforgettable read by one of our best-loved biographers.
About the Author
Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town and studied American Literature at Columbia University in New York. She came to England through the Rhodes Trust in 1973. She is the prize-winning author of biographies including The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot; Henry James: His Women and his Art; Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life; Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life; Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft; Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds and Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World. There are also two memoirs, Shared Lives, A Story of Women's Friendship, and Divided Lives, about her mother, whose spiritual journey opened up Eliot's poetry for her. She has written the 'Life' for the Eliot website: tseliot.com. Lyndall Gordon is a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Oxford.
Reviews
A rich book in which it is a pleasure to become absorbed -- Claire Tomalin * Independent on Sunday *
Wonderfully full-blooded . . . A brilliant idea . . . superbly enjoyable material, much of it unfamiliar, all of it stimulating -- Philip Horne * Guardian *
Compelling . . . not an addition to the pile of "chronicle" biographies of Henry James . . . [The opening] is unforgettable, like a scene from a film . . . [This book] combines scholarly rigour with a nice line in nineteenth-century gothic -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *
Gordon's approach to biography is imaginative and risky . . . The result is a magnificent, important book, which points the way forward for the whole biographical genre -- Kathryn Hughes * Literary Review *
'A rich book in which it is a pleasure to become absorbed' -- Claire Tomalin * Independent on Sunday *
'Wonderfully full-blooded . . . A brilliant idea . . . superbly enjoyable material, much of it unfamiliar, all of it stimulating' -- Philip Horne * Guardian *
'Compelling . . . not an addition to the pile of "chronicle" biographies of Henry James . . . [The opening] is unforgettable, like a scene from a film . . . [This book] combines scholarly rigour with a nice line in nineteenth-century gothic' -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *
'Gordon's approach to biography is imaginative and risky . . . The result is a magnificent, important book, which points the way forward for the whole biographical genre' -- Kathryn Hughes * Literary Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9781844088928
Author Lyndall Gordon
Format Paperback
Page Count 544
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 455g
Dimensions(mm) 129mm * 200mm * 37mm
Told through the lense of Henry James's relationship with two women who particularly shaped his writing, Henry James is a unforgettable read by one of our best-loved biographers.
About the Author
Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town and studied American Literature at Columbia University in New York. She came to England through the Rhodes Trust in 1973. She is the prize-winning author of biographies including The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot; Henry James: His Women and his Art; Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life; Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life; Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft; Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds and Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World. There are also two memoirs, Shared Lives, A Story of Women's Friendship, and Divided Lives, about her mother, whose spiritual journey opened up Eliot's poetry for her. She has written the 'Life' for the Eliot website: tseliot.com. Lyndall Gordon is a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Oxford.
Reviews
A rich book in which it is a pleasure to become absorbed -- Claire Tomalin * Independent on Sunday *
Wonderfully full-blooded . . . A brilliant idea . . . superbly enjoyable material, much of it unfamiliar, all of it stimulating -- Philip Horne * Guardian *
Compelling . . . not an addition to the pile of "chronicle" biographies of Henry James . . . [The opening] is unforgettable, like a scene from a film . . . [This book] combines scholarly rigour with a nice line in nineteenth-century gothic -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *
Gordon's approach to biography is imaginative and risky . . . The result is a magnificent, important book, which points the way forward for the whole biographical genre -- Kathryn Hughes * Literary Review *
'A rich book in which it is a pleasure to become absorbed' -- Claire Tomalin * Independent on Sunday *
'Wonderfully full-blooded . . . A brilliant idea . . . superbly enjoyable material, much of it unfamiliar, all of it stimulating' -- Philip Horne * Guardian *
'Compelling . . . not an addition to the pile of "chronicle" biographies of Henry James . . . [The opening] is unforgettable, like a scene from a film . . . [This book] combines scholarly rigour with a nice line in nineteenth-century gothic' -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *
'Gordon's approach to biography is imaginative and risky . . . The result is a magnificent, important book, which points the way forward for the whole biographical genre' -- Kathryn Hughes * Literary Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9781844088928
Author Lyndall Gordon
Format Paperback
Page Count 544
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 455g
Dimensions(mm) 129mm * 200mm * 37mm
