Marc Simpson

An interesting companion volume to an exhibition, Henry James and American Painting, running June 9 through September 10, 2017 at the Morgan Library & Museum. It includes three chapter – one by Colm Tóibín on James's relationship with American painters such as John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and others, including the influence of painting and painters on James's fiction – a second by Marc Simpson on James's art criticism – and a third (not really on painting) by Declan Kiely on show more James's manuscripts and letters held by the Morgan and, more interestingly, on James's attitude toward post mortem publication of letters (as presented most famously in his story/novella The Aspern Papers).

Accompanying this volume and the exhibit is an online, 52-minute audio guide to the exhibit.

Interesting book, and I very much like Henry James, but I think you have to be quite a true Jamesian to rate it higher than I did at 3½***. Lavishly illustrated. show less