Terminations

Terminations
The Death of the Lion, The Coxon Fund, The Middle Years, The Altar of the Dead
Henry James

"The workmanship is beyond compare."--New York Times


Terminations is Henry James's most thematically unified collection of stories. Gathered in 1895, and following his fascination with the supernatural in the 1880s, this elegant collection explores the sadness of loss, both physical and spiritual, and finds James at his introspective best, while providing a glimpse of how the author dealt with death in his own life.

The collection consists of four stories: "The Death of the Lion," in which the narrator prepares to write an obituary for a great editor he admired; "The Coxon Fund," where an endowment from a will comes unexpectedly to a seemingly undeserving character; "The Middle Years," a brief glimpse at the public reception of a novel and the private sacrifice it exacted from its author; and "The Altar of the Dead," a moving meditation on finding meaning in life that James wrote in response to the death of a close lady friend.

Terminations reveals a writer preoccupied with the endings of life, expressing his thoughts in prose that is as finely balanced as the most famous of James's work.

Henry James (1843-1916) wrote more than one hundred stories, plays, works of criticism, and novels, including The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl.

Pine Street Books
2004 | 248 pages | 5 x 7
ISBN 978-0-8122-1893-0 | Paper | $18.95s | £12.50
World Rights | Fiction

Short copy:

Long been considered one of the literary giants of his age, Henry James is an exquisite stylist who questioned the mores and stereotypes of the Gilded Age.