PDF Books in Fiction Short Stories
The Birthplace
by Henry JamesThe Birthplace is a short story by Henry James, first published in his collection The Better Sort in 1903. A witty satire on the excesses of bardolatry, the story reflects James's skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Beyond the narrow scholarly issue, the story also shows a typically imaginative Jamesian protagonist inventing an ..
The Reverberator
by Henry JamesThe Reverberator is a short novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in Macmillan's Magazine in 1888 and then as a book later the same year. Described by the leading web authority on Henry James as "a delightful Parisian bonbon," the comedy traces the complications that result when nasty but true stories about a Paris family get into the A..
Glasses
by Henry JamesGlasses is an 1896 short story by Henry James. A young woman whose only asset is a supremely beautiful face is about to make a society marriage until her fiancé discovers that, being virtually blind, she needs thick glasses which ruin her looks.The anonymous narrator, a bachelor artist, visits Folkestone and sees a young woman with an astonishly be..
Nona Vincent
by Henry JamesNona Vincent is a short story by Henry James. Excerpts from the bookThe year before, in a big newspapery house, he had found himself next her at dinner, and they had converted the intensely material hour into a feast of reason. There was no motive for her asking him to come to see her but that she liked him, which it was the more agreeable to..
The Beldonald Holbein
by Henry JamesMrs. Munden had not yet been to my studio on so good a pretext as when she first intimated that it would be quite open to me-should I only care, as she called it, to throw the handkerchief-to paint her beautiful sister-in-law. I needn't go here more than is essential into the question of Mrs. Munden, who would really, by the way, be a story in hers..
The Chaperon
by Henry JamesThe Chaperon is a short story by Henry James. Exploring the intricacies of relationships, this narrative captures the imagination of the reader. The well-drawn characters are rooted in the plot and elucidate the theme. A charming tale of family love and relationships...
Georgina's Reasons
by Henry JamesHenry James's 1884 tale “Georgina's Reasons” presents readers with an insoluble hermeneutic problem regarding its heroine's motivation. This essay applies four interpretative frameworks — theological, political, scientific and geographical — to the question of the heroine's “reasons”. Each way of interpreting the story aligns with a genre of ninete..
Sir Dominick Ferrand
by Henry JamesLevity is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has about it an attractively lighthearted quality. It tells of Peter Baron, a poor, young struggling writer of adequate, if not transcendent, talent, who lives in a dreary London boarding house inhabited also by a mysteriously clairvoyant and beautiful young widow, with her small boy..