Dzheyms Genri

Henry James was an American writer and the brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James, the founder of pragmatism.

Henry James was born on April 15, 1843, in New York City, into an educated family; he was the middle of three brothers. His father, Henry James Sr., was a well-known publicist, educator, and public figure.

Their father gave his sons an excellent education. At the age of 12 to 16, Henry studied in Geneva, London, Paris, and Bonn; thus, still in his teens, he became acquainted with European culture and immersed himself in the world of European bohemia, whose customs were later reflected in his books.

After returning to the United States, the James family settled in Boston and then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the heart of New England. In 1861, during a fire, James suffered a serious spinal injury, which prevented him from fighting on the Northern side in the Civil War (1861–1865).

In 1862, Henry James began studying law at Harvard University, but soon dropped out and devoted himself entirely to journalism and literature. In 1865, his first story, “A Tragedy of Error,” was published in Atlantic Monthly.

In 1869, James embarked on his first independent journey through Europe, first to London and then to the Continent. From that moment on, one of the central themes of his work became the contrast and dissimilarity between the Old World and the New. After returning to the United States, the writer published his first novel, Watch and Ward (1870). In 1871, Atlantic Monthly published his first major novella, “A Passionate Pilgrim.” In Henry James’s early works, which generally depicted American life and customs, the influence of writers such as Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and George Eliot can be felt.

In 1872, the writer moved to Europe and spent the next two years mainly in Italy, working on the novel Roderick Hudson (1875).

In 1875, Henry settled in Paris and became friends with the Russian writer Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, whose work he admired and promoted. Turgenev introduced James to a circle