Latest news with #HenryJames
BBC News
16-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Author Henry James' desk in Rye to feature in BBC documentary
Work by the National Trust to restore the writing desk of author Henry James will feature in a new series of the BBC's Hidden Treasures television lived at Lamb House in Rye, East Sussex, between 1897 and 1914, and wrote many of his most famous books, including The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl, at the National Trust said it had meticulously restored the desk and viewers can see the intricate process it Mitchell, collections and house manager at the trust, said: "It is a pleasure to introduce Lamb House and its own unique charm to a wider audience." The programme will demonstrate how the trust brought the desk back to life, including structural repairs to splits in the wood, veneer restoration and stabilising the trust also made repairs to the writing room in Lamb House – known as the Green Parlour."Henry James remains an incredibly important literary figure, and being part of the restoration of his writing room was a very special moment for me and the team," Ms Mitchell added."I hope that Hidden Treasures brings a lot more visitors to this beautiful property."Other famous residents at Lamb House went on to use James's desk, including E.F Benson and Harford Montgomery Treasures is to be aired on BBC2 at 21:00 BST on Friday.
Telegraph
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why you shouldn't ignore Henry James
Who reads Henry James today? His name seems to float in the ether, his corpus reduced in bookshops to a few familiar titles – if they even have them in stock. You'll often do well to find more than The Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw. And though 20th-century critics installed him as a colossus of the canon, James never really held a candle to Charles Dickens's popularity, so instantly evocative of Christmas and Victorian urchins, much less to the comic ecstasy that continues to surround the Jane Austen cult. This vanishing is apt, given how fond James was of a good ghost story. But there are advantages to being a ghost. If James doesn't penetrate the public consciousness in the way of other literary giants, he suffuses it. The value of the novel – its future as an art form – preoccupied him, so he did what any artist is duty-bound to do under the circumstances. James, who would be known in his lifetime as the Master, raised the standard. His writing formed the brickwork by which the road to literary modernism was paved. Listen to TS Eliot: 'James did not provide us with 'ideas', but with another world of thought and feeling.' Listen to Spender: 'What James did in fact revolutionise is the manner of presenting the scene in the novel.' Listen to Woolf on James's ghost stories: 'We must admit that Henry James has conquered. That courtly, worldly, sentimental old gentleman can still make us afraid of the dark.' In his wake, he has left a long and impressive gathering of admirers that extend from James Baldwin, who kept a picture of the author above his writing desk, to John Banville, who applied his own masterful pen to write out the fate of one of James's best-known characters, Isabel Archer (from The Portrait of a Lady), in his 2017 novel Mrs Osmond. Even so, there may seem little incentive for the modern reader to explore James's non-fiction. After all, criticism in an author's career tends more often than not to be an afterthought, the equivalent of gilding and cornices in the palatial museum of a writer's repertoire. But James was always an exception, and, over a century later, his critic's eye holds up a mirror that is still startling in its clarity. Nowhere is this better shown than Peter Brooks's new book, Henry James Comes Home (★★★★★), an illuminating exploration of the author's 10-month trip in 1904 from Britain – his home, on and off, since the 1870s – to the land of his birth. That journey culminated in the controversial travelogue, The American Scene. Tracing the steps of the now-mature Master, Henry James Comes Home forms a poignant counterpart to Brooks's 2007 work Henry James Goes to Paris, which followed the young novelist as he navigated his course among some of the brightest stars in the literary firmament.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
This New Hampshire town is one of the best small towns in US, according to Country Living
Country Living recently released its list of the 10 best small towns in the country for 2025, and one town in New Hampshire made the cut. The lifestyle magazine's annual ranking, based on research and in-person visits from Country Living writers, includes many different types of small towns from all over the country, ranging from soulful Southern barbecue havens to peaceful Northwest mountain towns. In a ranking where only 10 towns made the cut, Tamworth, New Hampshire is on the list. Here's what to know about Country Living's favorite small town in the state. Located between the White Mountains and the Lakes region, Tamworth is a rural town known for its nature and craft spirits. Nature fans can enjoy hikes through white pines in Big Pines Natural Area, kayaking or swimming in the freshwater of Lake Chocorua and camping at the nearby Huttopia White Mountains site – sights once enjoyed as a retreat by intellectuals like E.E. Cummings and Henry James, according to Country Living. However, Country Living notes that the most popular attraction in Tamworth is Tamworth Distilling, a distillery that takes inspiration for their craft spirits from the surrounding natural environment, creating state-inspired brews like Old Hampshire Blended Applejack and William Whipple's Winter Wheat Whiskey, named after the New Hampshire founding father. Tamworth Distilling: This NH distillery just ranked among the best for craft specialty spirits, per USA Today Here's Country Living's full 2025 list of the country's 10 best small towns, in no particular order: Madison, Georgia Sisters, Oregon Rockport, Massachusetts Maysville, Kentucky Lockhart, Texas Bluffton, South Carolina Milan, Ohio Easton, Maryland Nevada City, California Tamworth, New Hampshire This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Tamworth, NH named a best small town in US. What to explore there
