Quentin Anderson

Henry James's Cultural Office

Both for scholars and for the wider public Henry James began to come into his own after the centennial of his birth in 1943. If, as I believe, James has had a cultural function, we can tell approximately when he assumed it. The writer who is discussed in Frederick Dupees collection of the critical essays written before 1945 had, generally speaking, been regarded as one interesting novelist among others. It was in the decade following the mid-1940s that he enjoyed a distinct position that set him apart and attracted a wider audience. He was often spoken of as the artist prized by other artists, although this did not, of course, explain the vogue that led to the reprinting of so many of his works, and the absorbed reading they frequently got from those who had no interest in the character of Jamess innovations in fictional technique. Did James answer a need felt by his readers at the time, and if so, what was it? Assuming that the novels, as Lionel Trilling once put it, read us—assuming, that is, that James supplied something we badly wanted—what clues about us does this offer?