The Altar of the Dead: A spiritual and philosophical fable about life, death and love.

Written by Henry James

Narrated by Eric Meyers, Laurel Lefkow and Christopher Ragland

Henry James was born 15th April 1843 in New York City.

His youth was spent travelling with his family receiving what was an "extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous" education as they journeyed through London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the father's current interests and publishing ventures. James studied primarily with tutors and only briefly attended schools.

Undoubtedly the quality of his writing has ensured his name is enshrined in the American literary tradition.

James was a committed Anglophile and spent most of his adult life as an expatriate in Europe. Many of his novels juxtapose the Old World with the New World. Classics such as ‘The Portrait of a Lady’, ‘Daisy Miller’ and ‘The Ambassadors’, display the entanglement between American and European cultures and mentalities. They highlight the differences between the two worlds through following the experiences of American expatriates in Europe.

A prolific author he was able to easily move across genres to create vivid and totally real worlds and situations and to offer sophisticated observations of human relations as well as realistic, social criticism.

As a critic James was unafraid to venture into reviews and essays of those other literary giants around him. These together with his short stories and, of course, classic novels, make Henry James an author to be not only admired but read, and read often.

In 1915 Henry James became a British citizen.

On 28th February 1916, at the age of 72, Henry James died in Chelsea, London.

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. He never won.

In this story James examines the effect that the death of a dearly loved person has on a man’s life. How he copes, how he grieves and how he attempts to move forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803544298

Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and non-fiction. He spent most of his life in Europe, and much of his work regards the interactions and complexities between American and European characters. Among his works in this vein are The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and The Ambassadors (1903). Through his influence, James ushered in the era of American realism in literature. In his lifetime he wrote 12 plays, 112 short stories, 20 novels, and many travel and critical works. He was nominated three times for the Noble Prize in Literature.