John Auchard

His omniscient eye took in the surfaces of cities, the nuances of speech, dress, and manner, and, above all, the microscopic interactions, hesitancies, betrayals, and self-betrayals that are the true substance of relationships. The entirely new Portable Henry James provides an unparalleled range of this great body of work: seven major tales, including Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, “The Beast in the Jungle,” and “The Jolly Corner”; a sampling of revisions James made to some of his most famous work; travel writing; literary criticism; correspondences; autobiography; descriptions of the major novels; and parodies by famous contemporaries, including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, and Graham Greene.

He built a national reputation representing people whose lives had been shattered by corporate recklessness and grievous medical negligence. In landmark cases, Edwards helped people from all walks of life stand up for themselves against tremendous odds. Four Trials provides an electrifying account of four of his cases as it tells the story of the courageous and unmistakably decent people Edwards was privileged to represent in times of tragedy, great loss, and often great joy. And in a deeply moving account, Four Trials also speaks of the tragedies and joys that Senator Edwards has known in his own life -- and how today life and justice are more precious to him than ever.

Henry James wrote with an imperial elegance of style, whether his subjects were American innocents or European sophisticates, incandescent women or their vigorous suitors. His omniscient eye took in the surfaces of cities, the nuances of speech, dress, and manner, and, above all, the microscopic interactions, hesitancies, betrayals, and self-betrayals that are the true substance of relationships. The entirely new Portable Henry James provides an unparalleled range of this great body of work: seven major tales, including Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, "The Beast in the Jungle," and "The Jolly Corner"; a sampling of revisions James made to some of his most famous work; travel writing; literary criticism; correspondences; autobiography; descriptions of the major novels; and parodies by famous contemporaries, including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, and Graham Greene.

In these essays on travels in Italy written from 1872 to 1909, Henry James explores art and religion, political shifts and cultural revolutions, and the nature of travel itself. James's enthusiastic appreciation of the unparalleled aesthetic allure of Venice, the vitality of Rome, and the noisy, sensuous appeal of Naples is everywhere marked by pervasive regret for the disappearance of the past and by ambivalence concerning the transformation of nineteenth-century Europe. John Auchard's lively introduction and extensive notes illuminate the surprising differences between the historical, political, and artistic Italy of James's travels and the metaphoric Italy that became the setting of some of his best-known works of fiction. This edition includes an appendix of James's book reviews on Italian travel-writing.

Against a background of Continental literary movements, Auchard explores the structures of silence in the novels and tales of Henry James. He develops their dynamics in terms of plot and action as he draws out their disturbing philosophical implications. The book relates James to the reaction against 19th-century materialism, which was symbolism, to the potency of decadence, to the century's pulses of mysticism, even to its wave of aestheticized Catholicism, and it brings James up to the edge of the modern abyss.In presenting the distinction between the symbolic richness of positive silences and the decadent void of negative silences, the work provides original scholarship of the highest order, both on James and on the extensive literature of silence, symbolism, and decadence. Silence in Henry James may indeed be a source of integrity, vitality, and fertility, but it plays out its subtle dialectic on the edge of nothingness and sometimes on the brink of collapse.

He develops their dynamics in terms of plot and action as he draws out their disturbing philosophical implications. The book relates James to the reaction against 19th-century materialism, which was symbolism, to the potency of decadence, to the century's pulses of mysticism, even to its wave of aestheticized Catholicism, and it brings James up to the edge of the modern abyss.In presenting the distinction between the symbolic richness of positive silences and the decadent void of negative silences, the work provides original scholarship of the highest order, both on James and on the extensive literature of silence, symbolism, and decadence. Silence in Henry James may indeed be a source of integrity, vitality, and fertility, but it plays out its subtle dialectic on the edge of nothingness and sometimes on the brink of collapse.