Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
From the Pages of
The Wings of the Dove
“Even now it’s not a question of anything I should ask you in a way to ‘do.’ It’s simply a question of your not turning me away—taking yourself out of my life. It’s simply a question of your saying: ‘Yes then, since you will, we’ll stand together. We won’t worry in advance about how or where; we’ll have a faith and find a way.’ That’s all-that would be the good you’d do me. I should have you, and it would be for my benefit.” (page 36)
“She fixed upon me herself, settled on me with her wonderful gilded claws.” (page 71)
The lady in question, at all events, with her slightly Michael-angelesque squareness, her eyes of other days, her full lips, her long neck, her recorded jewels, her brocaded and wasted reds, was a very great personage—only unaccompanied by a joy. And she was dead, dead, dead. Milly recognised her exactly in words that had nothing to do with her. “I shall never be better than this.” (page 169)
“As I told you before, I’m American. Not that I mean that makes me worse. However, you’ll probably know what it makes me.”
(page 183)
“That’s the way people are. What they think of their enemies, goodness knows, is bad enough; but I’m still more struck with what they think of their friends.” (page 265)
“I
lie well, thank God.” (page 302)
“Since she’s to die I’m to marry her?” (page 375)
Venice glowed and plashed and called and chimed again; the air was like a clap of hands, and the scattered pinks, yellows, blues, sea-greens, were like a hanging-out of vivid stuffs, a laying-down of fine carpets. (page 420)
“She won’t have loved you for nothing.” (page 445)
“I used to call her, in my stupidity—for want of anything better—a dove. Well she stretched out her wings, and it was to that they reached. They cover us.” (page 491)

Published by Barnes & Noble Books
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
 
 
The Wings of the Dove
was first published in 1902. The present text follows James’s revised “New York Edition” of 1907.
 
Published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading Copyright © 2005 by Bruce L. R. Smith.
 
Note on Henry James, The World of Henry James and
The Wings of the Dove,
and Comments & Questions
Copyright © 2005 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
 
Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.
 
The Wings of the Dove
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-296-3 ISBN-10: 1-59308-296-7
eISBN : 978-1-411-43351-9
LC Control Number 2004111990
 
 
Produced and published in conjunction with:
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
 
Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher
 
Printed in the United States of America
QM
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Henry James
The writer Henry James was born into a wealthy family in New York City in 1843. His father, Henry, Sr., was a religious free-thinker and follower of the philosopher Swedenborg, and associated with many of the literary men of his day, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Young Henry was educated privately in New York, Geneva, Paris, and London; the family lived alternately in Europe and the United States for much of his childhood.
He began his literary career writing for magazines. Having dropped out of Harvard Law School to pursue writing, he associated with the literary set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was a good friend of budding novelist and critic William Dean Howells. In 1864 James’s first published piece of fiction, the story “A Tragedy of Error,” appeared in the
Continental Monthly.
He also wrote reviews and articles for the
Atlantic Monthly
and the
Nation.
He frequently traveled to Europe and in 1876 settled permanently in London.
James is often cited as one of literature’s great stylists; it has been said that his writing surrounds a subject and illuminates it with a flickering light, rather than pinning it down; according to Virginia Woolf in her diaries, he spoke in the same way. His style became more and more indirect as he moved from his early period, when he produced novels that considered the differences between American and European culture and character—
Roderick Hudson
(1876), The
American
(1877),
The Europeans
(1878),
Daisy Miller
(1879),
Washington Square
(1881), and
The Portrait of a Lady
(1881)—to his middle period, when he wrote two novels about social reformers and revolutionaries,
The Bostonians
and
The Princess Casamassima,
both in 1886, as well as the novellas The
Aspern Papers
(1888) and
The Turn of the Screw
(1898).
In 1898 James retreated to Lamb House, a mansion he had purchased in Rye, England. There he produced the great works of his final period, in which in complex prose he subtly portrayed his characters’ inner lives: The
Wings of the Dove
(1902),
The Ambassadors
(1903), and
The Golden Bowl
(1904). He returned to the United States for the last time to supervise production of a twenty-six-volume edition of his most important fictional works that was published between 1907 and 1917.
The American Scene
(1907), an account of his last journey to America, is highly critical of his native land. He became a British citizen in 1915. Shortly after receiving the Order of Merit, Henry James died, on February 28, 1916, leaving behind a prodigious body of work: twenty completed novels, 112 stories, and twelve plays, as well as voluminous travel writing and literary journalism and criticism.
The World of Henry James and
The Wings of the Dove
1789
William James, Henry’s grandfather, emigrates to the United States from Ireland.
1811
Henry James, Sr., the author’s father, is born.
1826
Washington Square is dedicated as a public place and military parade ground. Originally a marsh, then a graveyard, it served as a spot for duels and executions prior to this transformation.
1828
Construction begins on the first house on the north side of Washington Square; over the next thirty years Washington Square North will become the most expensive and fashionable street bordering Washington Square.
1832
William James dies, leaving a $3 million estate to his twelve children.
1835
Henry James’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Walsh, moves into a townhouse at 18 Washington Square North (now part of 2 Fifth Avenue), occupying it until 1847. James visits her often as an infant and toddler.
1836
Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his essay “Nature,” setting forth the main principles of Transcendentalism.
1837
William Dean Howells is born; he will be James’s colleague, an important editor, and a founder of American “realism.”
1840
Henry James, Sr., marries Mary Robertson Walsh of New York City.
1842
William, the eldest child of Henry, Sr., and Mary James, is born.
1843
On April 15, Henry James, Jr., is born at 21 Washington Place, in New York City, around the corner from his grandmother. In October the James family relocates to Europe.
1844
The family returns to New York City.
1845
Henry’s brother Garth Wilkinson (“Wilky”) James is born.
1846
Another brother, Robertson (“Bob”) James, is born.
1848
Alice James is born.
1849
The social circle Henry, Sr., inhabits comprises philosophers and writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry, Jr., is educated privately in the United States and Europe. His exposure to the Old World during his formative years establishes in him a lifelong preference for Europe over America.
1853
The New York City Commission pays $5,000,000 for land that will become Central Park, a vast public recreation space in the European style. The first portion of the park will open in 1858; it will be complete some sixteen years hence.
1857
The
Atlantic Monthly
is founded by Moses Dresser Phillips and Francis H. Underwood. Early contributors include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell (the magazine’s first editor), and Oliver Wendell Holmes. In coming years Henry James, Jr., will be a frequent contributor.
1859
In October Henry, Sr., takes his family to Geneva.
1860
The family returns to America in September and settles in Newport, Rhode Island.
1861
The American Civil War begins.
1862
Henry James, Jr., enrolls at Harvard Law School but drops out after a year to pursue a writing career. He becomes friendly with writer William Dean Howells.
1864
In February James publishes his first piece of fiction, the story “A Tragedy of Error,” in the
Continental
Monthly. Nathaniel Hawthorne dies.
1865
James begins to write reviews for the Nation, a new liberal weekly. The American Civil War ends.
1866
The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable links Europe and America, vastly increasing the speed of information transmittal.
1869
In England James meets George Eliot and writes reviews of her works, including
Romola, Middlemarch,
and
Daniel Deronda,
which are published in the
Atlantic Monthly
and
the Galaxy, a literary journal. Mark Twain publishes the best-selling travel book The Innocents Abroad, based on letters he had written while journeying by steamship to Europe and the Holy Land; it treats hallowed Old World landmarks with irreverence and parodies the manners and mores of Europeans and Americans.
1870
James’s cousin Mary (“Minny”) Temple dies in March, and the author, devastated, moves back to New York. His social opportunities are abundant; he spends time at Emerson’s house in Concord, Massachusetts, and meets Henry Adams, who has just been appointed editor of the North
American Review.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
1871
James publishes his first novel,
Watch and Ward,
in installments in the
Atlantic;
it introduces what will be a prominent Jamesian theme: the development of a young girl into womanhood.
1872
Assigned to write a travel series for the Nation, James sails to Liverpool and spends time in Europe. Susan B. Anthony casts a vote in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, and is arrested.
1873
Financial panic grips New York with the failure of Jay Cooke and Company, the nation’s preeminent investment bank. After a ten-year economic boom, the United States enters its worst depression to date, although New York continues its prodigious growth.
1875
James publishes in the
Atlantic Monthly
the novel
Roderick Hudson,
about an American sculptor in Rome and his struggle to reconcile art and passion. During his early period (also called his international period), he compares the people and cultures of the United States and Europe, focusing especially on the differences. While living in Paris, James associates with the writers Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola, as well as Russian expatriate authors, including the novelist Ivan Turgenev. He works on his novel
The American,
about a self-made American millionaire who tries to marry the daughter of French aristocrats.
1876
Roderick Hudson
is published in book form. Impatient with
1877
The American
is published in book form. James is friendly with Alfred Tennyson, William Gladstone, and Robert Browning. While in Rome, James hears about an American “child of nature and of freedom” who consorted with a “good-looking Roman, of vague identity.” James is immediately inspired to turn this story into a novel,
Daisy Miller.
1878
James publishes the short novel
The Europeans.
The Macmillan Publishing Company of London asks him to write a biography of either Washington Irving or Nathaniel Hawthorne.
1879
James publishes
Daisy Miller,
about a young American woman in Rome, in book form. He signs a contract for the British copyright on
Hawthorne,
which is published in the English Men of Letters series in London.
1880- 1881
The focus of James’s writing shifts to social and psychological drama. Washington
Square
is serialized in
Cornhill Magazine
and
Harper’s
(1880) and released in book form (1881); the novel concerns a young American woman whose father rejects the man she wants to marry.
The
Portrait of a Lady
is serialized in
Macmillan’s Magazine
and the
Atlantic Monthly
(1880-1881), and in book form (1881); this brilliant novel depicts a young American woman who out of a kind of generosity marries the wrong man. James vows “never again to return” to New York, in a fit of disdain over the way the city’s “oppressive” economic growth has lowered the quality of life.
1882
James travels to Washington, D.C., where he briefly meets Oscar Wilde.
1886
James publishes the first novels of his middle period:
The Bostonians,
the story of a struggle between a southern conservative and an embittered suffragist, and
The Princess Casamassima,
an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking up anarchism and revolution.
1888
James publishes the short novel The
Aspern
Papers, about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes.
1889
Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of
The Bostonians,
James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years.
Casamassima,
an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking anarchism and revolution.
1888
up James publishes the short novel The
Aspern Papers,
about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes.
1889
Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of
The Bostonians,
James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years.
1890
He publishes
The Tragic Muse,
about art and theater in London and Paris. His brother William publishes his groundbreaking and influential
Principles of Psychology,
in which pragmatism and “radical empiricism” are key elements.
1891
James’s dramatization of
The American
fares moderately well.
1892
After a life beset by illness, Alice James dies in England, with Henry at her side.
1895
James’s first dramatic work written as such,
Guy Domville,
is booed by the opening-night audience and receives mostly negative reviews, though George Bernard Shaw praises it. After little success with playwriting, James returns to writing fiction. The United States increases its involvement in a conflict between Spain and Cuba, which wants independence from Spanish rule. James opposes this involvement, calling it “none of our business.”
1897
He publishes
What Maisie Knew,
the story of a preadolescent girl who must chose between her parents and a governess.
1898
James publishes the ghost story
The Turn of the Screw.
He purchases Lamb House, in Rye, England, where he will write his last novels and letters. The Spanish-American War takes place.
1900
During the final stage of his writing career, James’s style becomes increasingly complex and convoluted. Over the next few years, he produces what are often considered his greatest works.
1902
He publishes
The Wings of the Dove,
about a group of people who scheme to inherit a dying woman’s fortune.
1903
The Ambassadors,
about an American suspicious of European
ways who is won over by life in Paris, is published, as is “The Beast in the Jungle,” a story of a man who believes he is intended for something remarkable. In London, James meets Edith Wharton.
1904
His novel of adultery
The Golden Bowl
is published. He travels to the United States to oversee the production of a revised collection of his most important works of fiction.
1907
James publishes
The American Scene,
his observations on what America has become. Publication of the twenty-six volumes of the revised fiction collection,
The Novels and Tales of Henry James,
begins; it will continue until 1917.
1908
James publishes the story “The Jolly Corner,” an oblique commentary on the America he has left behind.
1910
In January James becomes very ill. He is nursed by his brother William and William’s wife, Alice, and the three return to North America. William, also ill, dies shortly thereafter. James visits New York, where he receives psychiatric care.
1911
In August he returns to England.
1914
James begins work on two novels,
The Ivory Tower
and
The Sense of the Past,
which he will not complete before his death.
1915
James’s health deteriorates. He becomes a British subject.
1916
On New Year’s Day he receives the Order of Merit. On February 28 Henry James dies. His ashes are taken to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be buried in American soil, near his brother William.
1917
Ivory Tower
and
The Sense of the Past
are published in their unfinished state.

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