42-3
Chapter One
Bad Years in the Matrimonial
Market: James's Shorter Fiction,
1865-1878
Clair Hughes
When Henry James was asked to list an introductory selection of his work for a
new reader he advised that his tales, the "little tarts," should be read "when you have
eaten your beef and potatoes" (Krook 1967: 325). After serious effort with the novels,
that is, the ideal reader might indulge in something lighter by way of a dessert. To
extend the culinary metaphor, we might consider James's early tales as amuse bouches
- introductory savouries, evidence of style and content, challenge and innovation,
perhaps, but, most importantly, a promise that staying the course will be
rewarding.
Not all readers have been enthusiastic about these early tales. Rebecca West dismisses
"those first stories" as "pale dreams as might visit a New England spinster
looking out from her snuff-coloured parlour on a grey drizzling day" (West 1916:
24). West, in the year of James's death, might have been more charitable, given he ... read full excerpt from A Companion to Henry James ebook
