Henry James

"Drawing on narrative theory, psychoanalysis, and recent work on gender, and driven by the sense that James needs to be seen as a cultural comparativist, this book situates James in relation to American and European writers such as Thackeray, Eliot, Dickens, and Zola. James emerges as a complex figure marked by psychic mutilation, and even hysteria, and by an ambivalent reaction to "modernity" on which he writes so much. The book gives to the newcomer to James a comprehensive introduction, and for those who know James well it provides a new set of commanding arguments for re-reading and re-situating the work."--Jacket.