"The Happy Mixture": Fiction and the Popular Media Arts in James's "John Delavoy"

Abstract

Abstract:During the 1890s, James wrote several articles and metafictional stories analyzing mass print's changes to literature in his times. This essay examines a subset of such pieces, ones that seem to focus on the dramatic arts but do so in the context of emerging media technologies and business forms. Common imagery, plot, and characters in "John Delavoy," the major phase novels, and his article on Alexandre Dumas fils show textual traces of James adding to his repertoire of literary devices. Besides simulating print illustrations' visual effects, he mimics a theatrically performed human voice, anticipating today's digitized, multi-mediated focus on sensoria.