Showing results by author "James Henry" in All Categories

A selection of ghost stories which make your blood run cold.

Eugenia, a baroness divorced from a German prince, and her bohemian brother, Felix, are coming back to America. Raised and cultured in Europe, they are returning destitute to New England to seek out their rich and innocent cousins.

Roderick Hudson is one of Henry James's first novels.

Originally published in 1875 as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly, it traces the development of the title character, a sculptor. Funded by the wealthy Rowland Mallet, Roderick Hudson travels from America to Rome, where he becomes the talk of the city. He soon finds that Europe tests him in ways he had not anticipated, both as an artist and as a man.

The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who "affronts her destiny" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably England and Italy.

At first glance, 'The Most Dangerous Game’ by Richard Connell, ‘Paul’s Case’ by Willa Cather, and ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ by Henry James have very little in common. In ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ Sanger Rainsford, an accomplished big game hunter, is marooned on a remote island that is inhabited by another big game hunter, General Zaroff, who has found a very twisted way to add thrills to his hunting parties.

James considers this book to be his masterpiece! Various "ambassadors" are sent to Paris to persuade Chad Newsome to return to his New England town and attend to his business interests there. One of these envoys, Lambert Strether, is so impressed with Chad's suavity and charm that he advises him to stay with Mme. de Vionnet in France.

Daisy Miller is one of James' most haunting characters. In this reading, Mullen brings her to life in all her innocent playfulness and melancholic yearning.

A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime recording of Samuel West reading from the novella The Aspern Papers by Henry James, set against the decaying grandeur of Venice. Originally broadcast 26 April - 4 May 2010. Henry James took as inspiration for this tale the story of a mistress of Byron's who outlived the poet into lonely old age. He transposed the setting to Venice and cast the city he loved as a character in a taut narrative of literary theft and deception.

Kate and Merton need money. Milly needs love. How far will they go to get what they want? Kate Croy is in love with Merton Densher; a poor writer. Her rich aunt Maud disapproves. Maud has offered Kate a wealthy existence but if Kate chooses to marry Merton she risks losing it all. When American Heiress Milly Theale steps into her London society, Kate sees a way out. Milly confides in Kate that she believes herself to be gravely ill and Kate begins to see a way for her and Merton to have a future. When Merton returns to London, Kate sets out to bring her lover and her friend together.

The Pupil is an excellent tale from James' middle period. Pemberton, a young American with an Oxford education and but little money, takes a job tutoring Morgan Moreen, the 12-year old son of an American couple living in Europe in a style above their income. The family of the pupil is both comic and unfortunate, and the child himself is vividly drawn. The pupil's parents waffle about paying Pemberton the salary to which they'd agreed in their view, he should be satisfied by his life with them, and by the joy of tutoring young Morgan?

Evil apparitions haunt a governess who is put in charge of two supposedly "possessed" children. In "The Third Person", two spinsters add some spice to their lives by entertaining a ghost.

Daisy Miller is one of Henry James' shorter and earlier novels. It was written in 1878. It portrays the confused courtship of a headstrong American girl by Winterbourne, a compatriot of hers who is much more sophisticated. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates they meet in Switzerland and Italy.

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of innocent children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons which she believes possess their souls.

The narrator is a young governess, sent off to a country house to take charge of two orphaned children. She finds a pleasant house and a comfortable housekeeper, while the children are beautiful and charming. But she soon begins to feel the presence of intense evil.

Hyacinth Robinson, drawn into the London underworld of revolutionary politics, vows to assassinate an enemy of the people. His exposure to the Princess Casamassima's world of art, nobility, and beauty leads him to lose faith in his cause.

In this superb novella, a nameless narrator travels to Venice in search of Juliana Bordereau, the former lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. We witness the battle between a strong-willed woman who is determined to keep the secrets of a famous poet and an unscrupulous man who is equally determined to uncover them.

A man poised on the eve of what to others appears to be his greatest triumph, thinks back on what he knows is his greatest triumph. It’s a kiss from his Jenny. In this moment he shows us that what’s important is not how others perceive the success or failures in our lives, but how we see them.

Ralph Richardson presents 'The Liar', 'Four Meetings', and 'The Aspen Papers'.

When Chadwick Newsome lingers too long in Paris, his mother, a wealthy New England widow, sends her fiancé, Lambert Strether, to fetch him home. Newsome refuses, extending his stay while Strether finds himself lured by the intrigue of Parisian life. Published in 1903, The Ambassadors is regarded as a masterpiece of American fiction for its exceptional structure, its moral significance, and its depiction of the contrasting New and Old World cultures. Henry James considered this his finest novel.

The Turn of the Screw, a novella written by Henry James, is often considered the prototypical ghost story. The story begins: “The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.”