Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T08:17:56.743Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The James Family Theatricals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Jonathan Freedman
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

Within the last year [Henry] has published The Tragic Muse, brought out The American, and written a play, Mrs Vibert (which Hare has accepted) and his admirable comedy: combined with William's Psychology, not a bad show for one family! especially if I get myself dead, the hardest job of all.

The Diary of Alice James, 1890

With that work [Howells's Hazard of New Fortunes], your tragic muse, and last but by no means least, my psychology, all appearing in it, the year 1890 will be known as the great epochal year in American literature.

Letter from William James to Henry James, 1890

I like to think it open to me to establish speculative and imaginative connections.

Henry James, "Is There a Life after Death?", 1910

He waited, Henry James, until 1890 to realize his dream of writing for the stage. While the desire to be a dramatist had haunted him “from the first,” James had for some reason stalled. Contemplating the years of “waiting, of obstruction,” he sensed a certain resistance in his delayed start, as if realizing that it is in the nature of desire to postpone its satisfaction: “It is strange nevertheless that I should never have done anything - and to a certain extent it is ominous. I wonder at times that the dream should not have faded away” (James, Complete Notebooks [hereafter cited as Notebooks], 226). The melodramatic excess of this statement is balanced against a contrasting version of events: “When I was younger [the drama] was really a very dear dream with me - but it has faded away with the mere increase of observation” (quoted in James, Complete Plays, 44).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×