Jamesian links

The Henry James scholar's guide to web sites

Richard Hathaway's amazing heap of resources. If you don't know it already, go there now

My CV

As promised, in case you're interested

Jo's World

Back to my main page

An animal-loving people wanted the page about my cat Henry, but got this instead

This page is devoted to my 'full-time' occupation, which is,
in short, Henry James. I'm currently in the second year of 
my PhD, but since the first year was spent studying part-time
(i.e. hardly ever) and working for a grasping and vicious 
high street bank, I'm only technically one-and-a-half years 
through it. Confused? You should be. Luckily, I got a grant 
in the autumn of 1997 which enabled me to return to full-time 
study, and since then I've been a 'real' student again.

The title of my thesis is 'Endings and closure in Henry James's
writing' and will hopefully cover seven of eight of his novels,
glancing at the others and also using his other works, 
especially his travel writings, to support my argument. It was
inspired by tha fact that so many people complain about the 
endings of James's novels being unsatisfactory, unresolved, or
just nonexistent. My thesis examines James's ideas of what
makes a novel, and the characters within that novel,'complete',
and how his approach to ending fictions reveals an attitude 
towards completenessas an unattainable goal. I'm aiming to 
finish it in the autumn of the year 2000, and if I'm lucky 
then you guys will get to read it when the book comes out. In 
the meantime, I lay chunks of it at the feet of my supervisor,
Ralph Pite (a top bloke; see my Supervisor quiz page for 
guidance on how to judge these things) every so often. 

Just to make sure I appreciate James enough, I take breaks from
studying him to present conference papers on various other 
subjects, ranging from Danielle Steele to Danny Boyle. My CV is
now available (there's a link on the left) for you to see them
all - or at least the titles; give me time to get my head round
HTML before you expect the lot!

I'm aware that Henry James is not common currency in late-
twentieth century culture in the way that some of my other 
interests (The Simpsons, Eighties music, restaurant reviews)
are, so the major forthcoming attraction, which I'll link up 
here, will be my beginner'sguide to Henry James, for anyone 
who's unwittingly stumbled in here when they really wanted to 
read about Henry's cat.

For anyone who wants a current update, right now I'm working
on James's travel writings and their portrayals of what makes 
a scene 'complete', and James's thoughts generally on what 
makes things aesthetically 'complete'. If anyone has any thoughts
on this or would like to talk about it, please mail me - I'd love
to hear from you!

Finally, there's one of my favourite quotations from James: 
this will a regular (and hopefully, regularly updated) feature
of the page, so I hope you enjoy them. Suggestions for others 
are very welcome.

Then there we are!

In this section I'll be supplying my favourite bit of the moment 
from a James novel, story, travel essay or whatever. It may be one I 
think is funny, an accurate observation, or just appealing for no
particular reason. This fortnight's one rings true from my own visits
to museums and other centres of high culture where you're shepherded
around unwillingly. In this bit, Daisy Miller, a young American tourist
judged by her fellow countrymen to be rather vulgar, is telling her
holiday acquaintance Winterbourne about how she's found Rome:

      'We are going to stay all winter - if we don't die of the
       fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal nicer
       than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was
       sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going 
       round all the time with one of those dreadful old men that 
       explain about the pictures and things. But we only had about
       a week of that, and now I'm enjoying myself.'

From 'Daisy Miller' (1878)