The Real Henry James

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The Real Henry James: Europe v America

Europe v America

BBC Radio 4 - The Real Henry James, Europe v America

Was James English or American? Letters reveal why he felt like an outsider to both.

Was James English or American? Letters and memoirs reveal why he felt like an outsider to both cultures. Read by Henry Goodman.

Henry James was not only a great novelist - he also wrote a great deal of entertaining non-fiction, producing reviews and essays on a wide variety of subjects. To mark the centenary of his death, these five anthologies reveal James through his letters, memoirs, essays and private notebooks.

Was James English or American? The British tend to regard him as American, the Americans as British. Although born in America, James's wealthy, eccentric father moved the family around constantly - to France, England, Switzerland, Boston - so the young James never felt settled in America. In fact, Henry James lived more of his life in his adopted country of England than in his native America. At the end of his life, he took British nationality in 1915 as a gesture of solidarity and as a protest against American neutrality in the First World War. But in some ways he always remained an outsider, and felt an outsider in both cultures.

James' writing gives us an insight into both societies. After he'd settled in London he composed a negative catalogue about his homeland - the tone hovers somewhere between real critique and self-mockery of the Englishman's snobbery about Americans.

The anthology has been selected by Professor Philip Horne of University College London, who is founding General Editor of a major scholarly edition of James's fiction and has re-transcribed the notebooks for an authoritative new edition.

Reader: Henry Goodman
With introductions by Olivia Williams

Producer: Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.

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The great writer is revealed through his letters and memoirs. Read by Henry Goodman.

To mark the centenary of Henry James's death, the great writer is revealed through his letters and memoirs. Read by Henry Goodman. With introductions by Olivia Williams.

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