Fiction, Europe - Travel Essays & Descriptions, US & Canadian Literary Biography, Italy - Travel

Italian Hours (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Name: Italian Hours (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Author: Henry James
ISBN: 9781411464179

by Henry James

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Nearly forty years of sojourning in James’s beloved Italy are remembered in his 1909 travel book. Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Florence, and other cities and countrysides come under the eye of a masterfully evocative observer and guide. His infatuation with Italy did not leave him blind to the issues the country faced in this true account—but there is no doubt he felt “the luxury of loving Italy.”

Synopsis

Nearly forty years of sojourning in James's beloved Italy are remembered in his 1909 travel book. Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Florence, and other cities and countrysides come under the eye of a masterfully evocative observer and guide. His infatuation with Italy did not leave him blind to the issues the country faced in this true account—but there is no doubt he felt "the luxury of loving Italy."

About the Author, Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916) was born in America but after forty years in England became a British subject in 1915. A consummate prose stylist and innovator, possessed of acute psychological discernment, James took the art of the novel to rarefied heights in such masterworks as The Turn of the Screw and The Golden Bowl, helping to pioneer literary realism.

Biography

Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907). During his career, he also wrote many works of criticism and travel. Although old and ailing, he threw himself into war work in 1914, and in 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject. In 1916 King George V conferred the Order of Merit on him. He died in London in February 1916.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).