Chronology
1843 15 April: Henry James born at 21 Washington Place in New York City, second of five children of Henry James (1811–82), speculative theologian and social thinker, whose strict entrepreneur father had amassed wealth estimated at $3 million, one of the top ten American fortunes of his time, and his wife Mary (1810–82), daughter of James Walsh, a New York cotton merchant of Scottish origin.
1843–5 Accompanies parents to Paris and London.
1845–7 James family returns to USA and settles in Albany, New York.
1847–55 Family settles in New York City; HJ taught by tutors and in private schools.
1855–8 Family travels in Europe: Geneva, London, Paris, Boulogne-sur-Mer. Returns to USA and settles in Newport, Rhode Island.
1859–60 Family in Europe again: HJ attends scientific school, then the Academy (later the University) in Geneva. Learns German in Bonn.
September 1860: Family returns to Newport. HJ makes friends with future critic T. S. Perry (who records that HJ ‘was continually writing stories, mainly of a romantic kind’) and artist John La Farge.
1861–3 Injures his back helping to extinguish a fire in Newport and is exempted from military service in American Civil War (1861–5).
Autumn 1862: Enters Harvard Law School for a term. Begins to send stories to magazines.
1864 February: First short story, ‘A Tragedy of Error’, published anonymously in Continental Monthly.
May: Family moves to 13 Ashburton Place, Boston, Massachusetts.
October: Unsigned review published in North American Review.
1865 March: First signed tale, ‘The Story of a Year’, appears in Atlantic Monthly. HJ’s criticism published in first number of the Nation (New York).
1866–8 Continues reviewing and writing stories.
Summer 1866: W. D. Howells, novelist, critic and influential editor, becomes a friend.
November 1866: Family moves to 20 Quincy Street, beside Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1869 Travels for his health to England, where he meets John Ruskin, William Morris, Charles Darwin and George Eliot; also visits Switzerland and Italy.
1870 March: Death in USA of his much-loved cousin Minny Temple.
May: HJ, still unwell, is reluctantly back in Cambridge.
1871 August–December: First short novel, Watch and Ward, serialized in Atlantic Monthly.
1872–4 Accompanies invalid sister Alice and aunt Catherine Walsh (‘Aunt Kate’) to Europe in May. Writes travel pieces for the Nation. Between October 1872 and September 1874 spends periods of time in Paris, Rome, Switzerland, Homburg and Italy without his family.
Spring 1874: Begins first long novel, Roderick Hudson, in Florence.
September 1874: Returns to USA.
1875 January: Publishes A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales, his first work to appear in book form. It is followed by Transatlantic Sketches (travel pieces) and then by Roderick Hudson in November. Spends six months in New York City (111 East 25th Street), then three in Cambridge.
11 November: Arrives at 29 rue de Luxembourg, Paris, as correspondent for the New York Tribune.
December: Begins new novel, The American.
1876 Meets Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Turgenev, Edmond de Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant and Émile Zola.
December: Moves to London and settles at 3 Bolton Street, just off Piccadilly.
1877 Visits Paris, Florence and Rome.
May: The American is published.
1878 Meets William Gladstone, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning.
February: French Poets and Novelists (collection of essays), is the first book HJ publishes in London.
July: ‘Daisy Miller’ (novella) serialized in The Cornhill Magazine; in November Harper’s publish it in the USA, establishing HJ’s reputation on both sides of the Atlantic.
September: Publishes The Europeans (novel).
1879 December: Publishes Confidence (novel) and Hawthorne (critical study).
1880 December: Publishes Washington Square (novel).
1881 October: Returns to USA; visits Cambridge.
November: Publishes The Portrait of a Lady (novel).
1882 January: Death of mother. Visits New York and Washington, DC.
May: Travels back to England but returns to USA on death of father in December.
1883 Summer: Returns to London.
November: Fourteen-volume collected edition of fiction published by Macmillan.
December: Publishes Portraits of Places (travel writings).
1884 Sister Alice moves to London and settles near HJ.
September: Publishes A Little Tour in France (travel writings) and Tales of Three Cities; his important artistic statement ‘The Art of Fiction’ appears in Longman’s Magazine. Becomes a friend of R. L. Stevenson and Edmund Gosse. Writes to his American friend Grace Norton: ‘I shall never marry … I am both happy enough and miserable enough, as it is.’
1885–6 Publishes two serial novels, The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima.
6 March 1886: Moves into flat at 34 De Vere Gardens.
1887 Spring and summer: Visits Florence and Venice. Continues friendship (begun in 1880) with American novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson.
1888 Publishes The Reverberator (novel), ‘The Aspern Papers’ (novella) and Partial Portraits (criticism).
1889 A London Life (collection of tales) published.
1890 The Tragic Muse (novel) published.
1891 HJ’s dramatization of The American has a short run in the provinces and London.
1892 February: Publishes The Lesson of the Master (story collection).
March: Death of Alice James in London.
1893 Three volumes of tales published: The Real Thing (March), The Private Life (June), The Wheel of Time (September).
1894 Deaths of Constance Fenimore Woolson and R. L. Stevenson.
1895 5 January: Guy Domville (play) is greeted by boos and applause on its premiere at St James’s Theatre; HJ abandons playwriting for many years. Visits Ireland. Takes up cycling. Publishes two volumes of tales, Terminations (May) and Embarrassments (June).
1896 Publishes The Other House (novel).
1897 Two novels, The Spoils of Poynton and What Maisie Knew, published.
February: Starts dictating, due to wrist problems.
September: Takes lease on Lamb House, Rye, Sussex.
1898 June: Moves into Lamb House. Sussex neighbours include the writers Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells and Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford).
August: Publishes In the Cage (short novel).
October: ‘The Turn of the Screw’, ghost story included in The Two Magics, proves his most popular work since ‘Daisy Miller’.
1899 April: The Awkward Age (novel) published.
August: Buys the freehold of Lamb House.
1900 Shaves off his beard.
August: Publishes The Soft Side (collection of tales). Friendship with American novelist Edith Wharton develops.
1901 February: Publishes The Sacred Fount (novel).
1902 August: Publishes The Wings of the Dove (novel).
1903 February: Publishes The Better Sort (collection of tales).
September: Publishes The Ambassadors (novel).
October: Publishes William Wetmore Story and his Friends (biography).
1904 August: Sails to USA, his first visit for twenty-one years. Travels to New England, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, the South, St Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
November: Publishes The Golden Bowl (novel).
1905 January: Is President Theodore Roosevelt’s guest at the White House. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
July: Back in Lamb House, begins revising works for the New York Edition of The Novels and Tales of Henry James.
October: Publishes English Hours (travel essays).
1906–8 Selects, arranges, writes prefaces and has illustrations made for New York Edition (published 1907–9, twenty-four volumes).
1907 January: Publishes The American Scene (travel essays).
1908 March: The High Bid (play) produced at Edinburgh.
1909 October: Publishes Italian Hours (travel essays). Health problems.
1910 August: Travels to USA with brother William, who dies a week after their return.
October: Publishes The Finer Grain (collection of tales).
1911 August: Returns to England.
October: Publishes The Outcry (novel adapted from play). Begins work on autobiography.
1912 June: Receives honorary doctorate from Oxford University.
October: Takes flat at 21 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea; suffers from shingles.
1913 March: Publishes A Small Boy and Others (first volume of autobiography). Portrait painted by John Singer Sargent for seventieth birthday.
1914 March: Publishes Notes of a Son and Brother (second volume of autobiography).
August: Outbreak of First World War; HJ becomes passionately engaged with the British cause and helps Belgian refugees and wounded soldiers.
October: Publishes Notes on Novelists (criticism).
1915 Is made honorary president of the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps.
July: Becomes a British citizen. Writes essays about the war (collected in Within the Rim (1919)) and the Preface to Letters from America (1916) by the poet Rupert Brooke, who had died the previous year.
2 December: Suffers a stroke.
1916 Awarded the Order of Merit in New Year Honours.
28 February: Dies. After his funeral in Chelsea Old Church, his ashes are smuggled back to America by sister-in-law and buried in the family plot in Cambridge.
Philip Horne, 2017
CLASSICS
