Terminations: The Death of the Lion, The Coxon Fund, The Middle Years, The Altar of the Dead

by Henry James

Overview

Terminations is Henry James's most thematically unified collection of stories. Gathered in 1895, and following his fascination with the supernatural in the 1880s, this elegant collection explores the sadness of loss, both physical and spiritual, and finds James at his introspective best, while providing a glimpse of how the author dealt with death in his own life.

The collection consists of four stories: "The Death of the Lion," in which the narrator prepares to write an obituary for a great editor he admired; "The Coxon Fund," where an endowment from a will comes unexpectedly to a seemingly undeserving character; "The Middle Years," a brief glimpse at the public reception of a novel and the private sacrifice it exacted from its author; and "The Altar of the Dead," a moving meditation on finding meaning in life that James wrote in response to the death of a close lady friend.

Terminations reveals a writer preoccupied with the endings of life, expressing his thoughts in prose that is as finely balanced as the most famous of James's work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812291193
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	08/04/2014
Series:	Pine Street Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	646 KB

About the Author

Henry James (1843-1916) wrote more than one hundred stories, plays, works of criticism, and novels, including The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl.

Date of Birth:

April 15, 1843

Date of Death:

February 28, 1916

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Attended school in France and Switzerland; Harvard Law School, 1862-63

Editorial Reviews

"The workmanship is beyond compare."—New York Times

From the Publisher