Volume 1, Number 3 · September 26, 1963
Jacobiting
By R.P. Blackmur
Henry James and the Jacobites
by Maxwell Geismar
Houghton, Mifflin, 480 pp., $7.00
If The New York Times is correct there are or will be thirty-two titles by Henry James in the new all (or nearly all) American library selected for the White House by a committee under the chairmanship of the librarian of Yale University. The question is whether or not this is the author dealt with so authoritatively by Maxwell Geismar in Henry James and the Jacobites. On the whole it would seem to be the same author, even though Mr. Geismar describes his author as un-American, anti-American, and ignorant of America. It would also seem that at bottom, and after all, Mr. Geismar's James is also the author so many Americans—and others—have written at length and variously about, even though Mr. Geismar thinks that Henry James is a construction by conspiracy out of hallucination. Mr. Geismar admits he knows that there is no 'real' Henry James (in the first sentence of his book) and then proceeds to discover a James of his own: a James whom to discover is to expose, and who, once exposed, is no longer the King over the Water and needs no longer to be criticized or read. The affair is problematic. Perhaps one copy of Mr. Geismar would serve the needs and safety of presidential visitors better than the thirty-two titles. Unluckily there is no Committee of the House to determine the matter.
Review, 1296 words
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