Chapter Chapter 7 of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

in his published writings, he also wrote a number of humorous parlor plays, several volumes of essays upon literary themes, and not a small amount of very charming verse.

Henry James, 1843-1916.

Henry James, a native of New York, is properly denominated an American writer, although after 1869 he made his home in England. His novels are usually associated with those of Howells as exemplifying the best work of the American realists. In James's narratives we find the extreme application of realistic theory along with an analysis of character and motive wonderfully minute. His novels and short stories are psychological studies for the most part, and have a comparatively small audience among American readers. As the novelist was at one time fond of presenting studies of his countrymen as they sometimes appear in Europe, in the environment of a superior culture, his work often aroused protest rather than favor here. Such was the reception given to Daisy Miller (1878). Others of the novels which are eminently characteristic of this author are An International Episode (1879), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Tragic Muse (1890), What Maisie Knew (1897), and The Ambassadors (1903). It is in the craftsmanship and structure of his narratives that James commands most general admiration; this artistic skill, along with his keen wit and general brilliance of style, may be most advantageously studied in some of the short stories, -- which constitute a large portion of his fiction, -- as, for example, in Terminations (1896) or The Private Life and Other Stories (1893).

Studies of Local Types.

Naturally the realistic novelists have, in the selection of material, frequently turned to the study of characters and manners with which their environment has made them well acquainted; there has therefore developed a large group of story-writers who deal with local types.

In New England.

Following the footsteps of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the delineation of the quiet New England life, Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) published the placid but impressive little story, Deep-haven, in 1877. Miss Jewett's work in this field has been sympathetic as well as accurate, and her novels have appealed strongly to the affections of many readers. Of these, A Country Doctor (1884), A Marsh Island (1885), and The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) may be mentioned. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844- 1911), born at Boston, became widely known by the publication of two mystical novels, The Gates Ajar (1868), and Men, Women, and Ghosts (1869). The daughter of a noted theologian and reared in the serious atmosphere of Andover, Mrs. Ward has given a distinctively religious coloring to her numerous works, of which The Story of Avis (1877), Beyond the Gates (1883), The Madonna of the Tubs (1886), Jack the Fisherman (1887), The Gates Between (1887), A Singular Life (1894), and The Supply at St. Agatha's (1896), are important examples. Margaretta Wade Deland (born in Pennsylvania, 1857), whose residence since 1880 has been at Boston, also touched the field of religious experience in her first novel, John Ward, Preacher, published in 1888. Sidney (1890), Philip and his Wife (1894), The Common Way (1904), The Awakening of Helena Richie (1906), and The Iron Woman (1911) are the most notable of her works. In Old Chester Tales (1898), Dr. Lavendar's People (1903), and Around Old Chester (1915), Mrs. Deland has produced a series of short stories that have unusual charm. Distinguished success in realistic portrayal of New England types is found in the work of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (born in Massachusetts, 1862). Mrs. Freeman has portrayed with great skill and intense feeling the more subdued yet rugged phases of New England life and character. Her short stories are of exceptional strength and exhibit the technical methods of realism in perfection. A Humble Romance (1887), A New England Nun (1891), Jane Field (1892), Pembroke (1894), and Jerome (1897) are her principal novels. Alice Brown (born in New Hampshire, 1857) has been especially successful in her short stories, such as are gathered under the titles Meadow-Grass (1895), Tiverton Tales (1899), and The County Road (1906). Closely akin in local color to the work of Mrs. Freeman, these tales admit a little more of the brightness and warmth of the New England sunshine as it creeps among the shadows of humble circumstances. A later novel, The Story of Thyrza (1909), is a work of genuine creative power.