The Catholic Side of Henry James (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 61)

The Catholic Side of Henry James is the first to reveal the profound Catholic imagery in James' work. Edwin Fussell argues that Henry James, though not a "card-carrying" Catholic, was a fellow-traveling Catholic of a certain literary type. Fussell is not trying to turn James into a Closet Catholic but is, rather, intent on questioning conventional critical assumptions about James' unquestioned secularity. He contends that the writer's career began with narratives of Catholic conversion and ended with his masterpiece of Catholic eccentricity and alienation, The Golden Bowl. With an enormously detailed knowledge of James' novels, tales, letters, and journals, Fussell convincingly demonstrates the extent of the writer's involvement with the ideas of Catholicism.