Partial Portraits

Last updated
Partial Portraits
Author Henry James
LanguageEnglish
Genre Literary criticism
PublisherMacmillan and Co., London
Publication date
8 May 1888
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages408 pp

Partial Portraits is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1888. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding decade, mostly on English and American writers, but also on the works of Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant and Ivan Turgenev. Perhaps the most important essay was The Art of Fiction, James' argument for the widest possible freedom in content and technique in narrative fiction.

Contents

Summary and themes

The essay The Art of Fiction was written in response to an article by English critic Walter Besant that attempted to establish the "laws of fiction." For instance, Besant insisted that novelists should confine themselves to their own experience: "A young lady brought up in a quiet country village should avoid descriptions of garrison life." James argued that a sufficiently alert novelist could obtain knowledge from everywhere and use it to good purpose: "The young lady living in a village has only to be a damsel upon whom nothing is lost to make it quite unfair (as it seems to me) to declare to her that she shall have nothing to say about the military. Greater miracles have been seen than that, imagination assisting, she should speak the truth about some of these gentlemen."

James continually argues for the fullest freedom in the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment: "The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting." In particular, James is suspicious of restraining fiction with specific moral guidelines: "No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind; that seems to me an axiom which, for the artist in fiction, will cover all needful moral ground."

James followed his own advice in criticizing the various writers included in Partial Portraits. In his essay on Maupassant, for instance, he wrote of the Frenchman's propensity for what James called the "monkeys' cage" view of human existence. But James from praisied Maupassant's vigour, precision and conciseness in describing life as he saw it.

Similarly, James praised the intellectual force of George Eliot, the stolid but comprehensive detail-work of Anthony Trollope, the unbounded imagination of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the genial common sense of Alphonse Daudet. All very different writers, but all speak with validity from their personal view on life. This wide range presages the "house of fiction" image James would include in the New York Edition preface to The Portrait of a Lady , where each novelist looks at life from a particular window of the house and thus composes a unique and personally characteristic account.

Table of contents

Critical evaluation

Although later critics have often disagreed with James' particular judgments of individual writers or works, almost all acknowledge that James helped to make narrative fiction discussable as one of the fine arts. Partial Portraits contains some of James' most memorable and comprehensive essays on his fellow writers, and with grace and style he took their works seriously as artistic efforts of the first importance.

A personal note is the essay on Constance Fenimore Woolson, a woman who played an important if still uncertain role in James' life. This is the only essay in Partial Portraits on a writer of minor significance, and it has provided grist to the mill of biographical speculation.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Trollope</span> English novelist of the Victorian period (1815-1882)

Anthony Trollope was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alphonse Daudet</span> French novelist

Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry James</span> American and British writer (1843–1916)

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1879.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1876.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1875.

<i>The Portrait of a Lady</i> 1881 Novel by Henry James

The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880–81 and then as a book in 1881. It is one of James's most popular novels and is regarded by critics as one of his finest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Besant</span> English novelist and historian (1836–1901)

Sir Walter Besant was an English novelist and historian. William Henry Besant was his brother, and another brother, Frank, was the husband of Annie Besant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Oliphant</span> Scottish novelist, 1828–1897

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works cover "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliza Lynn Linton</span> English novelist and journalist (1822–1898)

Eliza Lynn Linton was the first female salaried journalist in Britain and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path-breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist slant.

Joseph Leon Edel was an American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vernon Lee</span> British writer

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget. She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music and travel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Sherard</span> English writer and journalist

Robert Harborough Sherard was an English writer and journalist. He was a friend, and the first biographer, of Oscar Wilde, as well as being Wilde's most prolific biographer in the first half of the twentieth century.

<i>French Poets and Novelists</i>

French Poets and Novelists is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1878. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding several years. From an early age James was fluent in French and read widely in the country's literature. These essays show a deep familiarity with the techniques and themes of many French writers. The book also includes an interesting essay on Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, who James read in a German translation.

<i>Hawthorne</i> (book) 1880 book by Henry James

Hawthorne is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1879. The book was a study of James' great predecessor Nathaniel Hawthorne. James gave extended consideration to each of Hawthorne's novels and a selection of his short stories. He also reviewed Hawthorne's life and some of his nonfiction. The book became somewhat controversial for a famous section in which James enumerated the items of novelistic interest he thought were absent from American life.

<i>Essays in London and Elsewhere</i>

Essays in London and Elsewhere is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1893. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding several years on a wide range of writers including James Russell Lowell, Gustave Flaubert, Robert Browning and Henrik Ibsen. The book also included an interesting general essay on the role of the critic in literature and a piece of travel writing about London.

<i>Notes on Novelists</i>

Notes on Novelists is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1914. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding two decades on French, Italian, English and American writers. The book also contained a controversial essay, The New Novel, 1914, which passed judgment on various contemporary writers and occasioned much disagreement.

<i>New York Edition</i>

The New York Edition of Henry James' fiction was a 24-volume collection of the Anglo-American writer's novels, novellas and short stories, originally published in the U.S. and the UK between 1907 and 1909, with a photogravure frontispiece for each volume by Alvin Langdon Coburn. Two more volumes containing James' unfinished novels, The Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past, were issued in 1917 in a format consistent with the original set. The entire collection was republished during the 1960s by Charles Scribner's Sons. The official title of the set was The Novels and Tales of Henry James, though the more informal title was suggested by James himself and appears as a subtitle on the series title page in each volume. It has been used almost exclusively by subsequent commentators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book League of America</span> American book publisher (1930–1950s)

The Book League of America, Inc. was a US book publisher and mail order book sales club. It was established in 1930, a few years after the Book of the Month Club. Its founder was Lawrence Lamm, previously an editor at Macmillan Inc. The company was located at 100 Fifth Avenue, New York City, New York in a 240,000-square-foot (22,000 m2) office building that was constructed in 1906. It printed and distributed a variety of volumes in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. A victim of the Great Depression, the Book League of America was purchased by Doubleday in 1936.

A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to support themselves in this way or write as an avocation. Most novelists struggle to have their debut novel published, but once published they often continue to be published, although very few become literary celebrities, thus gaining prestige or a considerable income from their work.

References