Henry James, In the Cage

Hazel McNair Hutchison (University of Leeds)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1898

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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In August of 1898, James sent a copy of

In the Cage

to his friends Minnie and Paul Bourget. It was, he wrote, “a poor little pot-boiling study of nothing at all”. He said that he had only finished it because he found it hard to give up on a story, even when something that he imagined to be a subject turned out “on trial really to be none” (Horne,

A Life in Letters,

306). He was probably being modest, as he often was to friends about his work. However, James’s reaction to the writing of the tale is curiously parallel to the experience of its protagonist, a London telegraph girl whose insight and imagination allow her to glimpse the secret lives of her upper-class customers. Her powers of observation and communication appear to open up possibilities of love and escape from the…

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2013 words

Citation: Hutchison, Hazel McNair. "In the Cage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 March 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4479, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Henry James, In the Cage

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