Otbebookpublishing: 2325 books

Italian Hours ends with the phrase, "the luxury of loving Italy," and everything in the book indicates that James enjoyed this luxury to the fullest. But he was by no means a blind lover. His opening essay on Venice, for instance, doesn't gloss over the sad conditions of life for the city's...

"The Birthplace" is a short story by Henry James, first published in his collection The Better Sort in 1903. A witty satire on the excesses of bardolatry, the story reflects James's skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Beyond the narrow scholarly issue, the story also...

Published in 1884, Henry James short novella Pandora follows the development of a relationship between Count Otto Vogelstein and miss Pandora Day; exploring the cultural differences between Europe and the emerging United States, the rise of more spirited and socially free women, and the friction that arises with class mobility. (Google)

Henry James wrote a number of stories about art, artists, their achievements, and their reputations – both whilst alive and after their death. The Madonna of the Future is about a would be artist. Theobald has an enormous reverence for the world of Art, and Italian Renaissance painters in particular....

The Bostonians is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885–1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centres on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin...

The Real Thing, a tale of an artist and his models, a husband and wife in impoverished conditions willing to do anything to earn their keep; "Sir Dominick Ferrand," in which struggling author Peter Baron's discovery of the secret letters of Dominick Ferrand changes his life; "Nona Vincent"...

Excerpt: Dale Tompkins slung the bulging bag of papers over one shoulder, and, turning away from the news-stand, walked briskly down the main street of Hillsgrove. The rain had ceased, and the wind that had howled fiercely all day long was shifting into the west, where it tore to tatters the banks...

Collection of humorous stories, the framing being that they are told by a waiter named Henry. Generally good, but with the last, "The Wooing of Tom Sleight's Wife", is the best. It's a terrific tale in which a sailor, parted from the girl he'd secretly married in Maine, many years later...

It was not the author's purpose in this volume to attempt a general history of magic and alchemy, or a scientific inquiry into their psychological aspects. He confined himself to a sketch of their progress in England and to a narrative of the lives of our principal magicians. It is also devoted to...

Excerpt: "It's old Mr. Bartle, sir, he whispered. He's in your room there -- dead! Dead? exclaimed Eldrick. Dead! Pratt shook his head again. He came up not so long after you'd gone, sir, he said. Everybody had gone but me -- I was just going. Wanted to see you about something I don't know what....

A wealthy man named Ashton is found murdered in an alley, apparently robbed for his jewellery and pocketbook. The police believe they have the killer, a young man who the next morning tries to pawn one of the stolen rings. Viner, however, the man who discovered the body and who is friends with the...

The murder of two brothers at the same time. though six hundred miles apart, is only the first of many mysteries surrounding Ravensdene Court. How could the two brothers have been murdered when they were both on a ship that went down with all hands off the coast of China three years earlier? What...

(Excerpt): "The Doctor never did believe this story, but claims for it that, to a great extent, it has altered his whole outlook on life. "Of course, what actually happened—what took place under my own nose," continued the Doctor, "I do not dispute. And then there is the case...

Excerpt from book: “Friday, December 18th, 10.30 A.M.--We've had an all-night journey to Rouen, and have almost got there. One of my sitting-ups was 106° this morning, but it was only malaria, first typical one I have met since S.A. A man who saw the King when he was here said, "They wouldn't let...