Volume 18, Number 2 · February 10, 1972

Henry James and his Cult

By Philip Rahv
Henry James: The Master, 1901-1916
by Leon Edel

Lippincott, 591 pp., $12.95

With this fifth volume, perhaps somewhat too brashly and summarily entitled The Master, Leon Edel at long last brings to a close his biography of James which has been appearing serially since 1953. In its way it is a phenomenal production, if only because of the truly exhaustive research that has gone into it and because it is probably the longest biography in English, and for all I know in any other language, of any single writer—of a writer, moreover, of whom it cannot be said that he really 'lived,' as even Edel himself admits albeit reluctantly and apologetically.



Review, 4904 words

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