Henry James (Vols. 2 & 3)

Summary

The middle two volumes of Edel's monumental five-volume life of Henry James, covering the writer's middle years in London and his ambitious, painful experiments with the theater. Edel pairs psychoanalytic insight with patient archival work, drawing on James's letters and notebooks to map the inner life behind the famously elaborate prose. The volumes exemplify the "new biography," treating their subject as a case study in creative consciousness.