Partial Portraits

James (1843-1916) was an American-British author regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and considered to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was born in New York but relocated to Europe as a young man, eventually settling in England and becoming a British subject in 1915, the year before his death. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. His best known novels, including The Portrait of A Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove, deal with the social and marital interplay between emigre Americans, the English, and continental Europeans. He also published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography and autobiography. This selection of his literary pen portraits, which had previously appeared in various periodicals, were first published together in book form in 1888 and reprinted from the edition of 1894.