Death in Henry James
Death in Henry James Andrew Cutting
* Andrew Cutting 2005 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-9336-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London wn 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-54397-7 ISBN 978-0-230-28599-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230285996 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cutting, Andrew, 1966- Death in Henry James / Andrew Cutting. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. James, Henry, 1843-1916-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Death in literatu reo I. Title. PS2127.D4C87 2005 813'.4-dc22 2005043392 10 14 9 13 8 7 12 11 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2005
Contents Abbreviations Acknowledgements Note on the Texts vii viii ix Introduction 1 Violence Ashamed: Sacrifice in Roderick Hudson Fait accompli Accident, suicide, and murder Scapegoat The Princess Casamassima War artist 2 Corpses and the Corpus Deathbed Necrophilia Abjection Vanishing James's life/death mask 3 The Wings of the Dove and the Morbid Degeneration Seeing death Rooms and tombs Style, the cult of the dead, and mourning 4 Afterlives Communicating with the future Out-thinking death: 'Is There a Life after Death?' Biographobia and the reader as legatee Ex-novelist 1 19 21 29 33 36 40 49 S2 S4 S7 64 70 82 8S 93 97 100 110 112 117 124 131 v
vi Contents 5 Demography in The Portrait of a Lady Calculation, the crowd, and the sublime Framing life Mortality in James's population 139 140 151 160 Notes Bibliography Index 169 183 193
Abbreviations AS HB JC L PC POL RH RHNY TP WD WS The American Scene in Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America (New York: Library of America, 1993), pp.351-736 'Honore de Balzac, 1902' in Literary Criticism: French Writers, Other European Writers, The Prefaces to the New York Edition (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp. 90-115 'The]olly Corner' in Complete Stories 1898-1910 (New York: Library of America, 1996), pp. 697-731 Henry James Letters, ed. Leon Edel, 4 vols (London: Macmillan, 1974-80; Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1984) The Princess Casamassima in Novels 1886-1890 (New York: Library of America, 1989), pp. 1-553 The Portrait of a Lady in Novels 1881-1886 (New York: Library of America, 1985), pp. 191-800 Roderick Hudson in Novels 1871-1880 (New York: Library of America, 1983), pp. 163-511 Roderick Hudson (New York: Scribner's, 1907) 'The Papers' in Complete Stories 1898-1910 (New York: Library of America, 1996), pp. 542-638 The Wings of the Dove, 2 vols (New York: Scribner's, 1909) Washington Square in Novels 1881-1886 (New York: Library of America, 1985), pp. 1-189 vii
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Laurel Brake, Steven Connor, Pamela Thurschwell, Richard Salmon, Julia Kuehn, and Polina Mackay for their helpful suggestions in developing this book. In relation to archival sources, I received generous assistance from Susan Halpert, Greg Zacharias, and Susan Gunter. Most of all, thanks to my partner Terry for love and encouragement over the years. The cover photograph of Henry James's life mask is reproduced by permission of Bay James and Houghton Library, Harvard University. The extract from Alice Howe Gibbens James's letter to her son appears by permission of Bay James. viii
Note on the Texts My main discussion of issues raised by the different editions of James's texts concerns Roderick Hudson in Chapter 1. For other sections of my argument, the differences between editions are generally not significant for my purposes; where they are significant, I discuss them in my text. Otherwise, I refer where possible to James's novels, tales, travel writing, and criticism in the Library of America editions as the most readily available and relatively standard source of first book texts. For novels after 1899, for which there is currently no Library of America edition, I refer where possible to the New York Edition. ix