SOURCE: '"Father's Ideas,'" in The American Henry James, 1957. Reprint by John Calder, 1958, pp. 51-82.

Anderson is an American critic, educator, and editor. In the following excerpt, he contends that Henry James, Jr. 's published reminiscences of his father prove the son's in-depth understanding of his father's philosophy, and that the younger James subsequently employed his father's beliefs in his fiction.

In 1885, the year of the publication of A Little Tour in France and the serialization of The Bostonians, Henry James received copies of The Literary Remains of the Late Henry James from his brother William. The father they both admired and cherished had died in 1882. In his letter of thanks and appreciation Henry Junior is forthright about what had been called, in the family circle, "father's ideas." Referring to the extracts William had selected from their father's work, he writes: "It comes over me as I...