Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; 1. Modern morals; 2. 'A kind of morbid modernity?'; 3. 'Crudities of mutual resistance'; 4. Beasts, secrets, and ghosts; 5. Isabel Archer's 'beastly pure mind'; 6. The 'strange logic' of Lambert Strether's 'Double consciousness'; 7. '… without your life, what have you got?' Concluding remarks; Texts by James; Bibliography.

Promotional Information

This book argues that Henry James reveals in his fiction a sophisticated theory of moral understanding.

Reviews

'It is a book for anyone who has ever wondered what is involved in leading a life worth living. it is, like James's novels themselves 'finely aware and richly responsible.' Modernism/Modernity