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1789 William James, Henry’s grandfather, emigrates to the United States from Ireland. 1811 Henry James, Sr., the author’s father, is born. 1826 Washington Square is dedicated as a public place and military parade ground. Originally a marsh, then a graveyard, it served as a spot for duels and executions prior to this transformation. 1828 Construction begins on the first house on the north side of Washington Square; over the next thirty years Washington Square North will become the most expensive and fashionable street bordering Washington Square. 1832 William James dies, leaving a $3 million estate to his twelve children. 1835 Henry James’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Walsh, moves into a townhouse at 18 Washington Square North (now part of 2 Fifth Avenue), occupying it until 1847. James visits her often as an infant and toddler. 1836 Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his essay “Nature,” setting forth the main principles of Transcendentalism. 1837 William Dean Howells is born; he will be James’s colleague, an important editor, and a founder of American “realism.” 1840 Henry James, Sr., marries Mary Robertson Walsh of New York City. 1842 William, the eldest child of Henry, Sr., and Mary James, is born. 1843 On April 15, Henry James, Jr., is born at 21 Washington Place, in New York City, around the corner from his grandmother. In October the James family relocates to Europe. 1844 The family returns to New York City. 1845 Henry’s brother Garth Wilkinson (“Wilky”) James is born. 1846 Another brother, Robertson (“Bob”) James, is born. 1848 Alice James is born. 1849 The social circle Henry, Sr., inhabits comprises philosophers and writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry, Jr., is educated privately in the United States and Europe. His exposure to the Old World during his formative years establishes in him a lifelong preference for Europe over America. 1853 The New York City Commission pays $5,000,000 for land that will become Central Park, a vast public recreation space in the European style. The first portion of the park will open in 1858; it will be complete some sixteen years hence. 1857 The Atlantic Monthly is founded by Moses Dresser Phillips and Francis H. Underwood. Early contributors include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell (the magazine’s first editor), and Oliver Wendell Holmes. In coming years Henry James, Jr., will be a frequent contributor. 1859 In October Henry, Sr., takes his family to Geneva. 1860 The family returns to America in September and settles in Newport, Rhode Island. 1861 The American Civil War begins. 1862 Henry James, Jr., enrolls at Harvard Law School but drops out after a year to pursue a writing career. He becomes friendly with writer William Dean Howells. 1864 In February James publishes his first piece of fiction, the story “A Tragedy of Error,” in the Continental Monthly. Nathaniel Hawthorne dies. 1865 James begins to write reviews for the Nation, a new liberal weekly. The American Civil War ends. 1866 The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable links Europe and America, vastly increasing the speed of information transmittal. 1869 In England James meets George Eliot and writes reviews of her works, including Romola, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda, which are published in the Atlantic Monthly and the Galaxy, a literary journal. Mark Twain publishes the best-selling travel book The Innocents Abroad, based on letters he had written while journeying by steamship to Europe and the Holy Land; it treats hallowed Old World landmarks with irreverence and parodies the manners and mores of Europeans and Americans. 1870 James’s cousin Mary (“Minny”) Temple dies in March, and the author, devastated, moves back to New York. His social opportunities are abundant; he spends time at Emerson’s house in Concord, Massachusetts, and meets Henry Adams, who has just been appointed editor of the North American Review. The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City. 1871 James publishes his first novel, Watch and Ward, in installments in the Atlantic; it introduces what will be a prominent Jamesian theme: the development of a young girl into womanhood. 1872 Assigned to write a travel series for the Nation, James sails to Liverpool and spends time in Europe. Susan B. Anthony casts a vote in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, and is arrested. 1873 Financial panic grips New York with the failure of Jay Cooke and Company, the nation’s preeminent investment bank. After a ten-year economic boom, the United States enters its worst depression to date, although New York continues its prodigious growth. 1875 James publishes in the Atlantic Monthly the novel Roderick Hudson, about an American sculptor in Rome and his struggle to reconcile art and passion. During his early period (also called his international period), he compares the people and cultures of the United States and Europe, focusing especially on the differences. While living in Paris, James associates with the writers Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola, as well as Russian expatriate authors, including the novelist Ivan Turgenev. He works on his novel The American, about a self-made American millionaire who tries to marry the daughter of French aristocrats. 1876 Roderick Hudson is published in book form. Impatient with 1877 The American is published in book form. James is friendly with Alfred Tennyson, William Gladstone, and Robert Browning. While in Rome, James hears about an American “child of nature and of freedom” who consorted with a “good-looking Roman, of vague identity.” James is immediately inspired to turn this story into a novel, Daisy Miller. 1878 James publishes the short novel The Europeans. The Macmillan Publishing Company of London asks him to write a biography of either Washington Irving or Nathaniel Hawthorne. 1879 James publishes Daisy Miller, about a young American woman in Rome, in book form. He signs a contract for the British copyright on Hawthorne, which is published in the English Men of Letters series in London. 1880- 1881 The focus of James’s writing shifts to social and psychological drama. Washington Square is serialized in Cornhill Magazine and Harper’s (1880) and released in book form (1881); the novel concerns a young American woman whose father rejects the man she wants to marry. The Portrait of a Lady is serialized in Macmillan’s Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly (1880-1881), and in book form (1881); this brilliant novel depicts a young American woman who out of a kind of generosity marries the wrong man. James vows “never again to return” to New York, in a fit of disdain over the way the city’s “oppressive” economic growth has lowered the quality of life. 1882 James travels to Washington, D.C., where he briefly meets Oscar Wilde. 1886 James publishes the first novels of his middle period: The Bostonians, the story of a struggle between a southern conservative and an embittered suffragist, and The Princess Casamassima, an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking up anarchism and revolution. 1888 James publishes the short novel The Aspern Papers, about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes. 1889 Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of The Bostonians, James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years. Casamassima, an exploration of the personal dangers involved in taking anarchism and revolution. 1888 up James publishes the short novel The Aspern Papers, about a man who woos the custodian of letters by a poet he idolizes. 1889 Psychologically and financially depressed by the failure of The Bostonians, James shifts his focus to playwriting for the next six years. 1890 He publishes The Tragic Muse, about art and theater in London and Paris. His brother William publishes his groundbreaking and influential Principles of Psychology, in which pragmatism and “radical empiricism” are key elements. 1891 James’s dramatization of The American fares moderately well. 1892 After a life beset by illness, Alice James dies in England, with Henry at her side. 1895 James’s first dramatic work written as such, Guy Domville, is booed by the opening-night audience and receives mostly negative reviews, though George Bernard Shaw praises it. After little success with playwriting, James returns to writing fiction. The United States increases its involvement in a conflict between Spain and Cuba, which wants independence from Spanish rule. James opposes this involvement, calling it “none of our business.” 1897 He publishes What Maisie Knew, the story of a preadolescent girl who must chose between her parents and a governess. 1898 James publishes the ghost story The Turn of the Screw. He purchases Lamb House, in Rye, England, where he will write his last novels and letters. The Spanish-American War takes place. 1900 During the final stage of his writing career, James’s style becomes increasingly complex and convoluted. Over the next few years, he produces what are often considered his greatest works. 1902 He publishes The Wings of the Dove, about a group of people who scheme to inherit a dying woman’s fortune. 1903 The Ambassadors, about an American suspicious of European ways who is won over by life in Paris, is published, as is “The Beast in the Jungle,” a story of a man who believes he is intended for something remarkable. In London, James meets Edith Wharton. 1904 His novel of adultery The Golden Bowl is published. He travels to the United States to oversee the production of a revised collection of his most important works of fiction. 1907 James publishes The American Scene, his observations on what America has become. Publication of the twenty-six volumes of the revised fiction collection, The Novels and Tales of Henry James, begins; it will continue until 1917. 1908 James publishes the story “The Jolly Corner,” an oblique commentary on the America he has left behind. 1910 In January James becomes very ill. He is nursed by his brother William and William’s wife, Alice, and the three return to North America. William, also ill, dies shortly thereafter. James visits New York, where he receives psychiatric care. 1911 In August he returns to England. 1914 James begins work on two novels, The Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past, which he will not complete before his death. 1915 James’s health deteriorates. He becomes a British subject. 1916 On New Year’s Day he receives the Order of Merit. On February 28 Henry James dies. His ashes are taken to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be buried in American soil, near his brother William. 1917 Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past are published in their unfinished state.
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