During his peregrinations, James revisits many scenes of his youth: Washington Square Concord and Salem, Massachusetts Philadelphia. Wells' subject is America and Americans James', Henry James himself. The British writer/scientist turns his attention outward to such matters as power plants and social inequities the expatriate American turns inward to record his shifting states of mind. The two authors' approaches to their subject are revelatory. Wells and reported by him in his The Future in America, also recently reissued by St. James' 10-month visit coincided almost exactly with a tour of the American East undertaken by H.G. An American literary giant at his most recondite-and exasperating.
While Jamesians will almost certainly applaud this new edition of the master's analysis of American life first published in 1906, less dedicated readers are just as likely to echo William James' words when he testily advised his brother, ""For God's sake, Henry, spit it out."" Written in James' most hermetic mature style, this extended reminiscence, a Sargasso of convoluted clauses and tangled metaphorical phrases, recounts the author's ambivalent reactions to returning to his native land after an absence of a quarter-century.
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