The whole of the man was in the special work—he was all a writer, a critic, an appreciator. He was literary in every pulsation of his being, and he expressed himself totally in his literary life. No character and no career were ever more homogeneous. He had no disturbing, perverting tastes; he suffered no retarding, embarrassing accidents. He lost no time, and he never wasted any. He was not even married; his literary consciousness was never complicated with the sense of an unliterary condition. His mind was never diverted or distracted from its natural exercise—that of looking in literature for illustrations of life, and of looking in life for aids to literature. Therefore it is, as I say, that his work offers a singularly complete image of his character, his tastes, his temper, his idiosyncrasies. It was from himself always that he spoke—from his own personal and intimate point of view.
—Henry James on Sainte-Beuve, 1880

This month marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Henry James, who was born on April 15, 1843, in New York City. James is today so firmly established as a literary master that it may hardly seem necessary to reaffirm the greatness of his achievement on this anniversary occasion. His work, after all, has met the most crucial test. His major writings—and many minor ones, too—remain in print, some of them in many editions, and they continue to be read and to be written about, even in some cases to