Henry James, Sr. and the American experience.

Abstract

In this biography, I have endeavored to discuss Henry James, Sr.'s career, his responses to the transformations--both social and personal--which marked his age and touched his life. I have tried to analyze the ideas that comprised the system he labeled "society the redeemed form of man, " to discuss his impact on his family, and to discern the similarities and differences between his own experiences and those of other Americans. The first two chapters focus on the development of James' life and the progression of his works, the third chapter concentrates on his ideas and the final two chapters depict his familial relationships and his role as a symbolic American. Henry James, Sr.'s experiences were those of incessant transformations. During his lifetime, which spanned the major portion of the nineteenth century, he witnessed the immense changes that affected American society, underwent an evolution in his own life from a young man of scholarly and theological ambitions to a crusader for a "redeemed" society, and observed the development of his two eldest sons, William and Henry, from precocious infants and inquisitive adolescents to writers of international repute.