Henry James and the Jacobites

Abstract

In the 1920's he had a small but definite position of prominence. He was read by Scott Fitzgerald, for example, among other writers of the period; his first editions were collected by the sophisticated. In the thirties age of social concern and radical belief, of thwarted hopes and twisted careers, of disenchantment, yes, but of vitality and excitement too poor James was put back in his familiar corner of obscurity. It was only in the midforties, in the decades following the Second (and perhaps Last) World War, that James was "discovered," and rediscovered, and discovered again, until he took on, with each passing year of our period, a greater and greater importance. Isn't he now the source of a whole literary, academic and critical foundation an industry? Like his own scoundrelly philosopher of "The Coxon Fund" strange irony James has become an institution. He is considered today not only a major figure in world literature but, with Melville, as a supreme American artist sometimes as the only American writer of modern times.