Showing results by author "James Henry" in All Categories

A biting satire on American life which turned convention on its head. This story explores the obsessive affections of the radical Olive Chancellor for Verena Tarrant, a gifted young speaker in the feminist movement. When Olive's cousin Basil becomes equally besotted, the scene is set for a bitter tug of war.

Milly Theale is a young, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems; materialism, romance, self-delusion, and ultimately fatal illness, insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.

Theatre Royal. The very name summons up something of grandeur and eloquence. And it was. Hosted by Ralph Richardson, these big-name productions also included the creme de la creme of acting talents from John Gielgud, Robert Morley and Orson Welles to Trevor Howard, Michael Redgrave and Laurence Olivier. They were based on works by the world's leading authors, among them Charles Dickens, Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Anton Chekhov. These are but a few of whose company we shall be keeping as we raise the curtain on our first instalment of theatrical history.

The old world of experience, personified by Felix and his sister, Baroness Munster, meets the innocent new world as they visit their American cousins in New England.

In Four Meetings and Daisy Miller, an American master sketches a series of deft psychological portraits that revive a now vanished world of Americans in Europe. In both stories, longtime American expatriates form memorable ties with passionate young travelers who fall prey to their own romantic fantasies.

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (January 27 - April 16, 1898). Classified as both gothic fiction and a ghost story, the novella focuses on a young governess sent to a remote country house to take charge of two orphans. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. But is the threat to her young charges really a ghostly presence or something else entirely?

Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, "Washington Square" is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The plot of the novel is based upon a true story told to James by his close friend, British actress Fanny Kemble. The book is often compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships.

In "The Great Good Place", a man searches for peace and respite from the demands of success. The fascinating, searching novella In the Cage tells of a young girl in a Mayfair post office becoming more aware of the great social world and of a certain gentleman's affairs through the telegrams that he sends.

"The American" is a novel by Henry James was originally published as a serial in "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1876-1877 and then as a book in 1877. The novel is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th century American business.

A gentleman, with the aid of a close female companion, investigates a hidden disturbance within his unconscious. This acclaimed classic short story is rendered in perfect Jamesian fashion by narrator Jonathan Epstein.

In "The Jolly Corner", a man returns to the house where he once lived, hoping to revisit the past. But now someone (or something) lurks there, leading him towards a frightening discovery. In "The Pupil", a young tutor befriends an ailing student and tries to protect him from the destructive whimsies of his family.

NBC University Theater initially started in Chicago with a remit to bring adaptations of classic novels, usually Anglo-American, to a radio audience. In its later years, it also included short stories and plays and went on to win the distinguished Peabody award. University Theater relied on excellent distillations of the novels and first-class acting alongside high production values.

The 5th volume of Great Sci-Fi Stories includes stories by Lester Del Ray, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, and others.

James' chilling Gothic horror novella read by Nicki White, reprising her role as the governess.

The Turn of the Screw has been described by many critics as the most sophisticated and terrifying ghost story in the English language. It is considered one of the great intellectual "spook tales" of all time. The story concerns a naive young governess who is hired to take care of two children in a large mansion in the English countryside. Everything is going fine, until she discovers that the children are not as innocent as they seem.

The St. Charles Players present a unique telling of Henry James' classic tale of relationships and their imperfections, in a new multi-cast dramatization performed in exciting Radio Theatre style.

This novel tells the story of Catherine Sloper, the plain, obedient daughter of the widowed, well-to-do Dr. August Sloper of Washington Square. When a handsome, reckless man-about-town proposes to Catherine, her father forbids the marriage because he believes the man to be after Catherine's fortune and future inheritance. The conflict between father, daughter, and suitor provokes consequences in the lives of all three that make this story one of James's most piercingly memorable.

What Maisie Knew was first published as a serial in the Chap Book and (revised and abridged) in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later in the same year. The story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents, What Maisie Knew has great contemporary relevance as an unflinching account of a wildly dysfunctional family. The book is also a masterly technical achievement by James, as it follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity.

James considers this book to be his masterpiece! Various "ambassadors" are sent to Paris to persuade Chad Newsome to return to his New England town and attend to his business interests there. One of these envoys, Lambert Strether, is so impressed with Chad's suavity and charm that he advises him to stay with Mme. de Vionnet in France.

The innocent and insolent Daisy confronts the traditions of old Europe and confounds all of the people (especially the men) who surround her. All throughout the story, there are classic Jamesian views on the differences between English and American societies.