Death in Henry James

Andrew Cutting

"From his early Civil War tales to his difficult late novels. Henry James dispenses death to his characters. The varied representations of death in his fiction give rise to both popular success and a reputation for elitism. James's creativity is inspired by bereavement and shaped by a desire for posthumous recognition. This first book-length study of this field shows that death is an extremely fertile concept through which to approach this major writer. Moving beyond established ideas of haunted James, Andrew Cutting offers a lucid and powerful introduction to five key aspects of Jamesian death: sacrifice, the corpse, morbidity, afterlife, and demography. His argument integrates a wide range of historical contexts and theoretical approaches into close readings of key novels and tales from across James's career, including Roderick Hudson, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Wings of the Dove. This book also contains the first ever discussion of James's death mask."--Jacket.