The Europeans

by Henry James

Overview

The Europeans is a short novel by Henry James. It is essentially a comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of two visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in the 'new' world of New England. One of the most important themes of the novel is the comparison between European and American women, which James stresses through the great difference existing between Eugenia and the Wentworth ladies. Madame Munster is independent, modern, and displays hauteur. Gertrude and Charlotte lack this self possession. For example, they tend to comply with their father's suggestions. The difference between Europeans and New Englanders manifests itself in particular in the expression of feelings and emotions, which are very sensitive for the former: love is more important than money. Moreover American people are more straitlaced and they have closer links with tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596744998
Publisher:	Digireads.com Publishing
Publication date:	01/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Susan M. Griffin is Professor of English and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville, Fulbright Senior Scholar, and Editor of the Henry James Review. She is co-editor with Willian Veeder of The Art of Criticism: Henry James on the Theory and the Practice of Fiction (1986), author of The Historical Eye: The Texture of the Visual in Late James (1991), editor of Henry James Goes to the Movies (2002) and All a Novelist Needs: Colm Tóibín on Henry James (2010), and co-editor with Alan Nadel of The Men Who Knew Too Much: Henry James and Alfred Hitchcock (2012).

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

Table of Contents

General editors' preface; General chronology of James' life and writings; Introduction; Textual introduction; Chronology of composition and production; Bibliography; The Europeans; Glossary of foreign words and phrases; Notes; Textual variants; List of emendations.

Editorial Reviews

He is as solitary in the history of the novel as Shakespeare in the history of poetry.

Graham Greene

Bron’s reading is alert with nuance. She alternates between energy and ennui as character or occasion dictates, voicing the characters lightly, in keeping with James’s strong narrative control. In so doing, she mirrors perfectly both James’s tense and ambiguous world as well as his masterful control of that world.”

AudioFile

James’ irony is far from being unkind; he sees too much he admires in the [American] ethos he criticizes to condemn it…This small book, written so early in James’ career, is a masterpiece of major quality.”

F. R. Leavis

[The] reading by Lloyd James…is excellent here. He softens his voice for the German characters and gives the pompous, self-centered Eugenia a deep, sonorous murmur.”

Kliatt

'[One of] two handsome volumes in their Cambridge maroon cloth covers with gilt stamping on the binding and James’s familiar signature on the covers are crucial additions to the resources scholars will use for generations to study the greatest novelist of the modern period.' John Carlos Rowe, The Henry James Review

From the Publisher