Father: Henry James, Sr. ( 1811-1882)
Brother: William James (1842-1910)
Sister: Alice James
Date of Birth: 15 April 1843
Birth Place: New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death: 28 February 1916 (aged 72)
Death Place: London, England
Cause of Death: Stroke
Remains: Buried, Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Writer
Nationality: American; acquired British nationality in 1915
Law School: Harvard Law School (dropped out in 1862).
Notable Work(s): The American, The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, Daisy Miller, The Ambassadors.
Influences: Henrik Ibsen, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ivan Turgenev, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Pushkin.
American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century
literary realism, Henry James (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) is
best known for his novels The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Golden Bowl (1904), Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Bostonians
(1886). He was born in New York City into a wealthy and prominent
family. He was the son of Henry James, Sr. and the brother of
philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. In
his youth, James travelled back and forth between Europe and America. He
studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna, and Bonn. At the
age of 19, Henry attended Harvard Law School for a short period of time
before quitting to pursue studying literature. At age 21, James devoted
himself to literature and published his first short story, A Tragedy of Error.
In 1875, Henry James James settled in Europe and wrote Roderick Hudson, which was his first book. Then he also wrote The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), Confidence (1879), Washington Square (1880), The Pension Beaurepas (1881), and his extended critical essay Hawthorne (1879). He became a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1897 James retired from the hectic city of London to the quieter
town of Rye in East Sussex. He devoted himself to writing and wrote What Maisie Knew (1897), In The Cage (1898), The Awkward Age (1899), The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Beast in the Jungle (1903), The Golden Bowl (1904), Italian Hours (1909), and The Outcry
(1911). James made England his home primarily in London and Rye,
Sussex, and became a British citizen in 1915. Here he became friends
with H.G. Wells. In 1916 he was awarded the Order of Merit by King George V. On 28 February 1916, Henry James died at the age of 72.
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