Madame de Mauves & Other Tales
'This selection forms a biography of sorts. Submerged beneath the surface of his melodramas are the unspoken fears that Henry hoped, by living in Europe, to leave behind'
Frances Wilson, from her preface to Madame de Mauves & Other Tales
The stories in this selection are James's earliest tales, including 'A Tragedy of Error', which was published when he was just twenty-one. With the exception of 'Madame de Mauves', which is 31,000 words, all the tales here are short and what James himself would have described as 'anecdotes.' In these stories James explores notions of freedom, sexuality, a fear of marriage and derailment in love, as well as other concerns of a young man with the mind of a wordly observer.
Frances Wilson has selected these thirteen stories and provided an original introduction to James's work.
Henry James (1843 - 1916) was an American-British author, regarded as one of the most important novelists in the English language, and a key figure in the transition between literary realism and literary modernism.
Frances Wilson is an author, academic and critic, who reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, the New Statesman and the Guardian. She has written biographies of Henry James, D.H. Lawrence and Dorothy Wordsworth, among others.