Jamesian Arts: Introduction

Abstract

James of course started it all himself with "The Art of Fiction" (1884), and his critics avidly followed suit. What quickly became seen as his protomodernist argument for fiction's art was championed (some would say "rigidly codified") in Percy Lubbock's 1921 The Craft of Fiction. R. P. Blackmur labeled his collection of the New York Edition prefaces The Art of the Novel (1934), enshrining James's criticism itself as an art: "the most sustained and [. . .] the most eloquent and original piece of literary criticism in existence." James's writings on theater were collected as The Scenic Art (1948). William Veeder and I selected and annotated James's critical prose in The Art of Criticism (1986).