Henry James, the second son of well-to-do parents, was born in New York City on April 15, 1843. Like his brother William James (the respected and influential pragmatist philosopher), Henry was destined for greatness. He was educated both in the United States and in Europe, and began his literary career writing fiction and literary criticism for prominent periodicals of his time such as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Weekly, and the North American Review. The great American writer William Dean Howells was an early and enthusiastic champion of James's prose, and James went on to win the admiration, friendship, or acquaintance, of many of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries' leading literary talents. James wrote his first novel in 1878 (Watch and Ward) and went on to produce many novels, novellas, plays, and short stories during the rest of his life.

While James spent much of his early career in...