Essays in London and Elsewhere

Essays in London and Elsewhere is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1893. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding several years on a wide range of writers including James Russell Lowell, Gustave Flaubert, Robert Browning and Henrik Ibsen. The book also included an interesting general essay on the role of the critic in literature and a piece of travel writing about London. James wrote many of thes... more

Essays in London and Elsewhere is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1893. The book collected essays that James had written over the preceding several years on a wide range of writers including James Russell Lowell, Gustave Flaubert, Robert Browning and Henrik Ibsen. The book also included an interesting general essay on the role of the critic in literature and a piece of travel writing about London. James wrote many of these essays while he was busy with his ultimately disastrous effort to become a successful playwright. So it's not surprising that two of the essays deal with the theater. One of them is a graceful eulogy for his friend, the great actress Frances Anne Kemble, with "her fine, anxious humanity, the generosity of her sympathies, and the grand line and mass of her personality." The other is a surprisingly emphatic defense of Henrik Ibsen, whose work caused London audiences to "sweep the whole keyboard of emotion, from frantic enjoyment to ineffable... less