Biography on Henry James

Born on 15 April 1843 in New York City, Henry James was an acclaimed Amer can-born English essayist, critic, and author. He was known for his expertise in literature, psychology, as well as philosophy. In his life time of 73 years, James wrote 20 novels, 112 stories, 12 plays and a great number of literary criticisms. He is also remembered for his work during the realism movement; he wrote the widely celebrated novels The Ambassadors (1903), The Turn of the Screw (1898) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881).

Henry James was born in a wealthy intellectual family. Henry James Sr. believed that education was the most important part of life, and therefore brought his family along and spent many years in Europe, with his children being tutored in languages and literature. Being an intellectual, Henry James Sr. had connections with many famous philosophers and transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorns, Thomas Carlyle, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; these significant scholars would later influence Henry James' life greatly.

When James was nineteen, he attended Harvard Law School for a short period of time; however he eventually found out that he had more interest in literature than law. By 1864, he finally set up his mind and decided to become a professional writer. He started by engrossed himself in French, Russian, English, and American classic literature. Then he traveled Europe on his own, during his journey he wrote book reviews and wrote stories for magazines, which included the North American Review, Nation, North American Tribune, and The Atlantic Monthly. James very first novel, Watch and Ward (1871) was serialized in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly.

James was a steady contributor to the New York Tribune while living in Paris; he then moved to England, and spent most of the time of his writing career being abroad. While traveling in Europe, James wrote several novels that described Americans living abroad, such as Portrait of a Lady, in which the protagonist was a American who lived in Rome and developed the story mostly in Europe. In 1905, after twenty five years, James once again stepped on America's soil. He wrote 'Jolly Corner', a story based on his interpretations and memories of New York.

When the World War I started, because the U.S refused to enter the war, James left the U.S and became a British citizen as a protest against the U.S government in 1915. In December 2 of that same eventful year, James underwent a stroke and even expected to die. However, he survived the stroke and died three months later on February 29, 1916. He lived a long life of 73 years, and left two novels unfinished, The Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past. His work is influential in both American and British literature, many of which is adapted into movies and will probably be remembered by the world for a long while.

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