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James considered ''The Ambassadors'' (1903) his most perfect work of art.  His novel ''[[The Bostonians]]'' (1886) is a criticism of the [[feminist]] mindset on a personal level, described by some as the last candid assessment of sexual politics in literature.  A [[liberal]] backlash to the themes in this magnificent novel hurt James' career, and this book is rarely assigned in [[public school]] curriculum.

James considered ''The Ambassadors'' (1903) his most perfect work of art.  His novel ''[[The Bostonians]]'' (1886) is a criticism of the [[feminist]] mindset on a personal level, described by some as the last candid assessment of sexual politics in literature.  A [[liberal]] backlash to the themes in this magnificent novel hurt James' career, and this book is rarely assigned in [[public school]] curriculum.

James was a beautiful but prolix writer, who inspired another generation of authors including Edith Wharton.  A general analysis of his work in ''Bartleby'' is as follows:<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/227/0512.html Peculiarity of the Henry James method.]</ref>

James was a beautiful but prolix writer, who inspired another generation of authors including [[Edith Wharton]].  A general analysis of his work in ''Bartleby'' is as follows:<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/227/0512.html Peculiarity of the Henry James method.]</ref>

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"The stories of James tend to be records of seeing rather than of doing. The characters are more like patients than agents; their business seems to be to register impressions; to receive illumination rather than to make up their minds and set about deeds. But this is a way of conceiving our human business by no means confined to these novels; is it not more or less characteristic of the whole period in which James wrote? One passes by insensible degrees from the world of Renan to that of Pater and Swinburne, and thence to that of [[Oscar Wilde]] and of writers yet living, in whom the cult of impressions has been carried to lengths yet more extreme."

"The stories of James tend to be records of seeing rather than of doing. The characters are more like patients than agents; their business seems to be to register impressions; to receive illumination rather than to make up their minds and set about deeds. But this is a way of conceiving our human business by no means confined to these novels; is it not more or less characteristic of the whole period in which James wrote? One passes by insensible degrees from the world of Renan to that of Pater and Swinburne, and thence to that of [[Oscar Wilde]] and of writers yet living, in whom the cult of impressions has been carried to lengths yet more extreme."