The 1880s Political Novel That Could Have Been Written Today

In correspondence with other writers over the years, Joseph Conrad often referred to Henry James as “The Master.” He would not be the only writer to do so. James was a writer’s writer, the kind who attracted the adulation of his peers. Conrad once described James’s writerly talent as a “magic spring” flowing “without languor or violence in its force, never running back upon itself, opening new visions at every turn of its course.”

James died more than a century ago, in 1916, but his reputation has come through the 20th century nearly unscathed. Between the taut psychology of , the dizzying world of , and the nuance of , James has retained both his status as one of America’s greatest writers and his perennial place on college syllabi. But even James has had some of his stories lost to time. is largely forgotten; it isn’t one of the books that scholars use to prove James’s genius. Yet it remains startlingly modern, and offers a lesson