Michael Anesko

Letters, fictions, lives : Henry James and William Dean Howells

This volume attempts to determine the early influence shared between William Dean Howells and Henry James by reconstructing and evaluating documentary evidence of their literary cross-fertilization. Of the 151 letters included in this volume - most of the extant correspondence between the two men - only half have been printed elsewhere. All items previously unpublished are letters by James. The selection represents each writers most significant criticism of the other, providing a valuable tool for historically informed comprehension and appreciation of both mens work.

Das Land ohne Musik

Tracing the outlines of the social world of Edwardian music, after Beigel and Borie move to London.

Lover … of the Fine Amenities

The history of the placement of a memorial tablet honoring Henry James in Chelsea Old Church, London (and the proposal to efface it).

A Network of Repressions

The central roles of John Singer Sargent and Jane and Wilfrid von Glehn—and their Chelsea salons—in consolidating a network of queer filiation around Henry James.

Arising from Dreams of Thee

Robert Allerton’s patronage of gay artists, including Alexander Robertson James, the writer’s youngest nephew.

The Jamesian Condom

Exploration of the motives for the conservative reflexes of the Jameses after the death of Henry James.

Keeping House with a Stranger

Conflicted responses among the James family to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Within the Rim

American relief initiatives at the outset of World War I bring John Borie and Henry James together.

The Torments of Spring: Jake Barnes's Phantom Limb in The Sun Also Rises

While critics recently have found The Sun Also Rises a fruitful text for reexamining issues of gender and sexuality in Hemingway’s work, a significant aspect of Jake Barnes’s genital wounding has been overlooked. At least from the time of the American Civil War, a diverse body of medical literature has documented the psychosomatic reality of phantom genitalia in traumatically injured men. Revisiting the novel from this perspective—imagining that Jake Barnes is haunted by a penile ghost—allows us to see this character as something more than a victim of disability. Instead, we might think of Jake’s material self as figuratively masculine but accidentally transgendered: a body that others can desire and that still can choose, or not, to reciprocate sexual feeling.