Henry James (1843-1916) is considered one of our finest storytellers. According to the scholar F.R. Leavis: “He belongs to the greatest tradition of the English novel, alongside Jane Austen and George Elliot.” In this eleven week course we will cover four of James’s most popular novellas: DAISY MILLER, THE ASPERN PAPERS, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, and THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE, as well as his novel WASHINGTON SQUARE. In addition, on alternate weeks, we will discuss the films that have been based on these five works. Here is a course that should be of interest to bibliophiles and cinephiles alike.
Week 1. Henry James Biography (Wikipedia). DAISY MILLER (1878)
Week 2 Peter Bogdanovich’s 1974 film DAISY MILLER, starring Cybil Sheppard (available for streaming on Kanopy for free and for rent on most other channels)
Week 3. WASHINGTON SQUARE (1880), chapters 1 - 17
Week 4. WASHINGTON SQUARE, chapters 18 - 35
Week 5. Agnieszka Holland’s 1997 film WASHINGTON SQUARE, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin and Maggie Smith (available for streaming on Hoopla for free and for rent on most most other channels)
Week 6. THE ASPERN PAPERS (1888)
Week 7. Julien Landais’s 2018 film THE ASPERN PAPERS, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson (available for streaming on Kanopy for free and for rent on most other channels)
Week 8. THE TURN OF THE SCREW (1892)
Week 9. Jack Clayton’s 1961 film THE INNOCENTS, starring Deborah Kerr as the governess (available for streaming on YouTube)
Week 10. THE BEAST OF THE JUNGLE (1903)
Week 11. Bertrand Bonello’s 2023 film THE BEAST, starring Lea Seydoux and George MacKay (available for streaming on Kanopy and Criterion for free and for rent on a few other channels)
Core Books
HENRY JAMES NOVELLA COLLECTION (available for purchase from Amazon Kindle)
WASHINGTON SQUARE, Penguin Classics
Supplemental Reading
MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS, Edited and with an Introduction by Harold Bloom, with essays discussing DAISY MILLER, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, THE ASPERN PAPERS, and THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE
BLOOM’S MAJOR NOVELISTS, HENRY JAMES, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom, with an essay discussing WASHINGTON SQUARE
HENRY JAMES GOES TO THE MOVIES, edited by Susan M. Griffin, with essays discussing many of the films to be covered in this SDG
Colm Toibin’s THE MASTER, a fictional depiction of the the last 2 decades of James’s life (very readable)
A PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY JAMES by Lyndall Gordon, focusing on the role women played in James’s life (of particular interest here since all of the 5 works covered in this SDG prominently feature female protagonists)