Time and Transformation in Henry James’ Social Novels

Mirosława Buchholtz

doi:10.35765/pk.2024.4502.10

Miroslawa Buchholtz Nicolaus Copernicus University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8208-728X

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/pk.2024.4502.10

Keywords: Henry James, social novel, feminism, revolution, authorship

Abstract

The Princess Casamassima and The Bostonians, both published in 1886, are exceptional in James’ literary career. They exemplify his attempt to adjust to the expectations of his readers by venturing into contemporaneous sociopolitical debates. Writing these two novels was in itself an act of courage. No reviewer expected James to have any expertise in matters relating to the lives of early feminists or lower classes. He was, however, interested in these current issues and invested time and effort in researching them. The two novels form a transatlantic diptych, with The Bostonians addressing the topic of American feminism and The Princess Casamassima focusing on workers’ movements in Britain. Quite predictably, most American reviewers were critical of The Bostonians, which only shows that the novel touched a nerve, and praised The Princess Casamassima, which seemed to concern British society. Reviewers in Britain did the reverse, which exposes the quasi-patriotic impulse in literary reviewing of that time, or perhaps any time. The author argues that James’ work on his social novels transformed his self-perception as a writer. She also shows that the transformations James captured in Anglo-Saxon societies and their representatives on both sides of the Atlantic are at once caught up in history and symptomatically timeless, almost historiosophic.

Author Biography

Miroslawa Buchholtz, Nicolaus Copernicus University

Professor of English at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, where she teaches American literature and film adaptations of literature and biography. A graduate of Brandeis University (MA, Ph.D.), she has published some 100 articles, essays, and reviews, seven books, including Henry James and the Art of Auto/biography (2014) and 21 edited volumes, including Henry James’ Travel: Fiction and Non-Fiction (2019). She is former President of the Henry James Society (2017), Book Review Editor for the Henry James Review (since 2023), and a member of the Polish Accreditation Committee (agency for quality assurance in higher education) – since 2012 (fourth term).

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