Henry James : Novels 1871-1880: Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, Confidence (Library of America) [Hardcover]

Henry James (Author)

Book Description

Series: Library of America | Publication Date: November 15, 1983

The first five novels of Henry James, presented complete in this volume, feature sparkling dialogue, masterfully timed suspense, and the romance of youthful artistic aspirations. The contrast between Europe and America, which gives a special dimension to all of James's cultural observations, is brilliantly deployed in these early works. "Watch and Ward," written when James was 28, is a Bostonian version of the Pygmalion story. In "Roderick Hudson," a headstrong and gifted young American sculptor loses his way among the temptations of Italy. "The American" was written in Paris and dramatizes a confrontation between the expatriate culture of American tourists and the protected world behind the barriers of old families and traditions. "The Europeans," by contrast, places two visiting European cousins in a pristine and conservative New England village. The little-known and charming "Confidence" is a light drawing-room comedy about the romantic entanglements of America! ns traveling through Europe.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The Library of America is an award-winning, nonprofit program dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as "the most important book-publishing project is the nation's history" (Newsweek), this acclaimed series is restoring America's literary heritage in "the finest-looking, longest-lasting edition ever made" (New Republic).

About the Author

William T. Stafford, editor of this volume, is professor of English at Purdue University. He was a founder and is editor of "Modern Fiction Studies," and has published numerous studies of James's novels, plays, and criticism.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1287 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (November 15, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940450135
• ISBN-13: 978-0940450134
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Henry James (1843-1916), the son of the religious philosopher Henry James Sr. and brother of the psychologist and philosopher William James, published many important novels including Daisy Miller, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, and The Ambassadors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some great early novels by Henry James, April 25, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Henry James : Novels 1871-1880: Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, Confidence (Library of America) (Hardcover)

This book has five complete novels for one comparatively low price! "Watch and Ward," is a novel that James himself preferred to ignore as a youthful indiscretion, but I found it a vastly entertaining and suspenseful love story. Roderick Hudson is a compelling cautionary tale. The American is a gripping story that cries out for a movie version (in my fantasy Peter Weir would direct, and it might star Tom Cruise and Winona Ryder, although I'm sure many others would do just as well). This novel has love, a duel, a frightful skeleton in the closet, blackmail, Carmelite nuns, etc. The ending should be adjusted along the lines of the play version that James later wrote. The Europeans did not grab me, but Confidence is a delightful novel with something James later tended to avoid--a happy ending. This collection provides a lot of great novelistic entertainment for the buck. The way the Library of America does it is that for one they are non-profit, and second they use top quality thin acid-free paper, which allows them to fit five books into the space of something slightly larger than one thick paperback. The book even has a silky little bookmark to hold your place. Classy!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As I Was Saying ..., November 15, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Henry James : Novels 1871-1880: Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, Confidence (Library of America) (Hardcover)

... the early novels of Henry James are extremely diverting, and this edition is "a lot of fine reading for a small price". I've reviewed all five novels separately, as I've read or re-read them over several months. Here's a compendium of those five reviews:

WATCH AND WARD: New England Regionalist?
"Watch and Ward" was the first novel of Henry James Jr, published in The Atlantic Monthly 1n 1871. "Junior" was 28 years old. "Watch and Ward" did not catapult him to literary fame, and has never been regarded as one of his masterworks, nothing more than a 'good start' toward "Portrait of a Lady". His masterpieces were not to be written until he was solidly middle-aged. James Junior, to put it bluntly, was not especially precocious. "Watch and Ward" is a brief, well-crafted but slightly bland novel -- a 'romance' actually, in the specific sense of that genre as practiced by New England writers of the generation of Henry James Senior. It's interesting to note that Junior had paid an extended visit to the elderly Seer of Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson, around the time when he was working on "Watch and Ward". Neither Henry, Senior or Junior, was any sort of consistent transcendentalist, but their literary manners were learned at the knee of Emerson, so to speak. The style and the narrative of Junior's early stories and this first novel come straight from Brook Farm. I haven't encountered any scholarly criticism of Henry James that perceives the influence on him of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Luisa Alcott, but I'd say such an influence is obvious in "Watch and Ward", both in the syntax and the themes. W&W is even a "Twice-Told Tale", patently inspired by the Hellenic myth of Pygmalion. And it's both a "moral romance", close to Hawthorne's short story "Doctor Rappucini's Garden", and a Love Romance which readers of "Little Women" would have approved. Why, it has what might be called a 'happy ending' -- certainly the sort of resolution that James would never repeat.
The plot concerns a fastidious, well-intentioned, somewhat priggish Boston gentleman who finds himself maturing in years and wealth without encountering a woman whom he can imagine as a wife. One day a desperate stranger, a 'westerner' of dubious character, approaches him begging for monetary aid, which he refuses. When the stranger later commits suicide, our gentleman rescues his scrawny, grimy, illiterate 12-year-old daughter and, without legally adopting her, launches into a fantasy life-plan of raising such a girl to become a model wife. James Junior was NOT yet the psychological novelist or the razor-edge dissector of human relationships of his later works; "Watch and Ward" is utterly naive from a post-Freudian perspective. So, of course, were most of the great novels of Victorian England that James must have aspired to match.
"Watch and Ward" is not a novel that you can't live without reading. If James Junior had written another dozen such novels, he'd have filled a niche as a regionalist comparable to Sarah Orne Jewett or Sherwood Anderson. Instead, it's astonishing to follow his evolution: "Daisy Miller" in 1878, "Washington Square" in 1880, "Portrait of a Lady" serialized in '80-'81, "The Bostonians" and "Princess Casamassima" in 1885 ...
Henry James Jr has long been adored by critics and scholars as perhaps America's greatest novelist, yet his later novels -- complex, turgid, elusive -- have daunted and discouraged altogether too many readers. If you're a reader hesitating to give Junior a second chance, I recommend starting where he himself started, with his mellow New England romances. "Watch and Ward" is included in the Library or America volume of 'Novels 1871-1880', together with "Roderick Hudson", "The American", "The Europeans", and "Confidence". I've already reviewed the first three of that list.

RODERICK HUDSON: The Marble Faun Authenticated ...
... or the apotheosis of the American Romance! "Roderick Hudson" was Henry James's second published full-length novel and his last, I would say, in the shared literary idiom of his 19th predecessors. His final tribute, if you will, to the 'Gothic' romances of the Brontes and above all of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I don't believe many critics have linked "Roderick Hudson" to Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun", but the linkage is tight, even if James didn't intend any connection. I would include Herman Melville's grand dismal romance "Pierre" in the linkage, except that I'm doubtful James ever knew of it. Even though most of the narrative takes place in Roma, "Roderick Hudson" is a New England novel at heart.
Published in serial in 1875, "Roderick Hudson" was not received with any great plaudits, and it hasn't been treated with the most ample respect by later literary critics. It's unquestionably true that James 'survived' -- luckily for us -- to write a dozen better novels than this one, beginning with his next, "The American". And yet "Roderick Hudson" is a very fine piece of writing! If James's next ten novels had been just as good but no better, he would still rank as one of the masters of the genre. What falls short for this reader in "Roderick Hudson" might ironically be exactly what could make it most enjoyable for other readers; it's a tale of drastic Passion, in which the characters are Larger Than Life. The excitement I find in reading James's more mature novels is that the characters are never dramatically exaggerated. They may be exceptional, but only in a manner well grounded in their ordinariness. The dramatis personae of "Roderick Hudson" are as sculptural as the intertwined and tormented figures of the Laocoön. The story portrays an anguishing Love Quadrangle:
Roderick is a young self-taught sculptor of Genius ... the most meteoric genius-to-be of the Age, and the most insufferable narcissist ever bent on self-destruction.
Christina Light is 'the most beautiful woman in Europe', raised by her odious mother to become literally a Princess. And a 'princess' she is, in the current derogatory American sense of the title! I might wonder if James's earliest readers found her credible, but I have no doubt that readers today will know what to expect of her. She is the Britney Spears or Sharon Stone of her epoch. She will reappear, by the way, as a character in a later James novel, chastened by experience but no less destructively alluring. Roderick of course is infatuated with her to the point of obsession.
Mary Garland is the New England girl par excellence, the finely spirited and spiritually fine abandoned fiancée, whom the unworthy consider 'plain' but the worthy recognize instinctively as 'handsome'. Our Principal Character is one of the worthy.
That Principal Character is Rowland Mallet, a wealthy American with no calling of his own except to be reliable and generous. His spontaneous recognition of Roderick's 'genius', and his decision to support Roderick's development by transporting him to Europe and subsidizing him there, is the launching point of the novel. Rowland is not a first-person narrator but nonetheless the focal lens of the narrative and the catalyst of most events. He is of course hopelessly in love with Mary Garland but incapable of self-interested disloyalty to his protegé. Almost colorless, he is nonetheless "the most interesting man in the world" in any interpretation of this novel.
Henry James wrote "Roderick Hudson" under the spell of Italy, upon his first visit there, and the descriptive settings in Roma and Firenze are spellbinding. The whole story is operatic in its emotive lushness; stripped of its rich vocabulary and nuances of description, it could easily be rewritten as a Danielle Steele tear-jerker. I don't mean that as dispraise, but rather as the highest praise, that James could take such an 'excessive' drama and write such subtle psychological insights into it.
This novel is included in the Library of America volume "Henry james: Novels 1871-1880" , along with 'Watch and Ward', 'Confidence', 'The American', and 'The Europeans'. I've already reviewed the last two. Some readers/reviewers have mistakenly suggested that Henry James is 'difficult' dry intellectual fare. I hope to persuade "you" of the contrary; James is juicy fun to read.

THE AMERICAN: Why Did Nobody Mention ...
... when I was served a full course of Henry James in college, that his novels were deliciously funny? Satiric thigh-slappers! In his early novels like The American and The Bostonians, James's wit is sharper than Mark Twain's elbow or Oscar Wilde's tongue! I suppose my dear professors of literature were entranced and bemused by the subtleties of James the Old Pretender, in The Golden Bowl or The Ambassadors. The late Henry James had his merits, I will grudgingly admit, but the mere beginner James -- The American was only his third novel, and in his century 'three' was barely a start on a career of writing -- was a formidable genius.
The title-character of The American, Christopher Newman, is introduced, with sly condescension, as an awkward American, a westerner who has earned 'quite a bundle' in manufacturing and stock-jobbing. He's a caricature of the brash self-made democrat, confident and in fact intrepid, but aware of his own astonishing naivete and shallowness of culture. He's cashed in his chips, at age 38, and come to Europe knowing that he's looking for something more than 'success in business' but totally ignorant of what that something might be. In the course of things touristic, he sets out on the Grand Tour, a summer chasing culture from Amsterdam to the Alps to Venice, at the end of which he has little more insight than he started with. When he returns to Paris, it comes back to him "simply that what he had been looking at all summer was a very rich and beautiful world, and that it had not al been made by sharp railroad men and... Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars James Junior, December 16, 2010

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henry James : Novels 1871-1880: Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, Confidence (Library of America) (Hardcover)

The process of getting acquainted with Henry James as a young novelist does not start all that promising. The very first novel, Watch and Ward, was nothing to be proud of. Had James remained on that level he may not even be included in the LoA publication program now. I would not have continued beyond it to the others in this volume.

`Watch and Ward' is a silly story about a man who can't find the right woman to marry, so he pounces on an opportunity to buy himself one. He `adopts' (without proper procedure) a 12 year old orphan girl and grooms her for the job of becoming his wife. Well, actually he keeps his intentions hidden from her for a few years, but not from others. Unfortunately the man, who is not really a bad sort of chap, gets his happy end, which is more than he deserves.

`Roderick Hudson' was later promoted to `first novel' status, though it was really the second one. It is another take on the Pygmalion theme, though the project gets lost in the execution. A man who likes art but can't make it decides to sponsor a talented sculptor. His ward runs out of control, as one would expect. Somewhat pulpy story, but great texture and great details. We find that the sponsor takes up more of our thoughts than the naughty artist.

The next one, `The American', is pure fun, a satirical novel with a Western Barbarian in the main focus: a wealthy mid-thirties business man who wants to educate himself by visiting Europe and if possible find a wife. Much is lost in translation. He is stuck in Paris, where he targets an aristocratic beauty for his marriage ambitions, with all the expected complications of conceit and prejudice. One could admit that the novel somewhat declines in its second half towards improbable melodrama. One might also wonder if the hero is really equipped with all senses: mainly he seems to lack common sense and erotic interests. (This may be premature but I am beginning to assume that Henry himself was not the most active in this department.)

Then follows `The Europeans', much shorter but in some way not so different. A pair of siblings from Europe comes to New England to look up relatives and dig gold. The digging is meeting with mixed success. The story is rather lightweight. Maybe its shortness played into that. The story has quite a few people in it. Relations among them are not that easily guessed. Building up a plausible plot in a plausible scenario was not that easy. Shortness has its advantages, but the material needs to fit the purpose.

The last novel here is `Confidence', another lightweight comedy about men and women, or about assumptions on angels and sphinxes. A rich young man asks his best friend to get to know the woman that he wants to marry, because he does not understand her and wants to benefit from the friend's expertise about women. Amusing, but easily forgotten. (That is why I have to read these things in sequence: otherwise I would not remember what I have read and what not.)

Volume 1 of the Henry James novels edition in LoA is good fun, but not much more, and certainly does not call for the classification `difficult', that James is often stuck with. Many things don't happen at all in these novels. People don't work (unless they are artists). They don't seem to think of sex, not to talk about actually indulging in it. Politics don't happen.
These 5 novels are rather conventional in their narrative approach. All are told by the wise man in the off, who will at times talk to us directly. Compared to volume 1 of the stories edition, which I finished and reviewed recently, I find the early novels a little disappointing. In the stories, James was willing to risk more, to come closer to taboo subjects, to be more experimental with structure.