A horrid story of intellectual corruption

The death of a great author often causes interminable displays of corrosive envy. Heirs, acolytes, interpreters and academics resent one another’s claims on the literary estate or cultural heritage. They try to engross the dead talent for their own. They claim privileges, and make spiteful stabs at people with whom they have the closest affinities. It was inevitable that this would be the fate of someone of the momentous stature, but sometimes arcane significance, of Henry James. Yet, as Michael Anesko recounts in this reflective and graceful monograph, the problem was aggravated by James’s conduct during the last decade of his life when he doctored family correspondence, made bonfires of papers, and used disingenuous ploys to try to control what no author can posthumously control. His machinations set a corrupting example for those who survived him.

James’s literary estate fell under the sway of his brother William’s widow Alice and son Harry.