Henry James

This beautifully sustained last volume brings to a majestic close Leon Edel's biography of Henry James. Whatever was faltering in the earlier volumes is here strengthened and made straight. All that was previously impressive -- the ample psychology, the fineness of narrative line, the clarity of details -- is here surpassed. James, in his declining years, seems, in Edel's portrait, more exacting, more masterful, and yet appealingly human and terribly vulnerable. What a lonely man he was, how singular, how triumphantly persevering. The long residence at Lamb House, the upsetting return to America, his sudden self-doubt on the eve of the world war, his keen friendships, the guarded sexuality, the experiences and manners and repressions of a lifetime converge on a protuberant imagination, producing The Beast In the Jungle, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, each work more striking than the next. James' last years are a success story, unique in American history, the artist as an old man at the height of his powers, a blessed and exhilarating vindication of what James called the sacredness of the literary calling. And what an inspiration he has been to later genera