Title: Henry James and the culture of consumption /
Authors: El-Rayess, Miranda,
Year: 2014
Subjects: James, Henry, Criticism and interpretation.; James, Henry, Knowledge Commerce.; Consumption (Economics) in literature.; Shopping in literature.; Women in literature
Abstract: "This book explores Henry James's imaginative engagements with the burgeoning consumer culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on his hitherto neglected fascination with shops and the shopping experience. Examining a wide range of the author's fiction and non-fiction in the context of developments such as the rise of the department store, the growing public presence of women shoppers and shop workers, and the increasing sophistication of commodity display and advertising, the book argues that consumer desire constitutes an integral part of James's understanding of modern subjectivity. It also demonstrates that the structures and strategies of commodity culture are deeply embedded in his style, his aesthetic and his conception of authorship. The study offers new readings of familiar and less familiar texts, and includes a wealth of original historical documentation that has been gleaned from contemporary newspapers, periodicals, advertising manuals, sales catalogues and guidebooks" --
Contents: Introduction -- 'Hungry gazes through clear plates': the artist at the shop window; The opening frame: A. L. Coburn's shop window frontispieces; Democratic spectacles: the Princess Casamassima and 'the altar of the dead'; A small boy and other intense window shoppers -- Two women behind glass. 'A city of shop-fronts, a great fancy bazaar': Paris and 'Rose-Agathe'; Class acts and real things; 'In the line of the eye': The Wings of the Dove -- Women in the city. A 'sisterhood of "shoppers"': 'a New England winter' -- Millicent Henning: plebeian princess; 'Nothing in all the wide world but a feeling of suspense': the trials of Fleda Vetch -- Shopping for American masculinity. Conquering the ogress in 'London'; 'The mere empty "bigness" in our destiny'; The sacred rage: The Ambassadors; The spoils of empire: The Golden Bowl -- The other side of the counter. Caged consciousness and winged intelligence; Curious dealers in Bloomsbury, Brighton and 'the bench of desolation' -- Epilogue -- 'This furnishing forth of my volumes'.