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Henry James

A London life

(written 1887, text of 1889)

Introduction

by Adrian Dover

This tale is one of James’s longest, in fact it falls into the category which he labelled the nouvelle. It seems that in writing it the author’s attitude to his heroine gradually became more critical and in the finished text a number of the other characters try to make Laura Wing realize that her standards are just too high and that she applies them too rigidly for modern society. Her fate is however not quite as dreadful as that of the girl whose distress at her mother’s behaviour, as related by Paul Bourget, gave James the idea (see the author’s notebook entries).

For details of the text sources and subsequent critical discussion see my bibliography. You may be interested in details of the problems I encountered while editing the source text for its presentation here, which can be found on a separate page, otherwise just start reading.