Henry James (1843-1916).

Henry James, a native of New York, is properly denominated an American writer, although after 1869 he made his home in England. His novels are usually associated with those of Howells as exemplifying the best work of the American realists. In James's narratives we find the extreme application of realistic theory along with an analysis of character and motive wonderfully minute. His novels and short stories are psychological studies for the most part, and have a comparatively small audience among American readers. As the novelist was at one time fond of presenting studies of his countrymen as they sometimes appear in Europe, in the environment of a superior culture, his work often aroused protest rather than favor here. Such was the reception given to “Daisy Miller” (1878). Others of the novels which are eminently characteristic of this author are “An International Episode” (1879), “The Bostonians” (1886), “The Princess Casamassima” (1886), “The Tragic Muse” (1890), “What Maisie Knew” (1897), and “The Ambassadors” (1903). It is in the craftsmanship and structure of his narratives that James commands most general admiration; this artistic skill, along with his keen wit and general brilliance of style, may be most advantageously studied in some of the short stories, -- which constitute a large portion of his fiction, -- as, for example, in “Terminations” (1896) or “The Private Life and Other Stories” (1893).

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909), most cosmopolitan of American writers, both in residence and in the material utilized in his novels, was also one of the most productive of the novelists. His first novel “Mr. Isaacs” appeared in 1882, and was followed by “Dr. Claudius” (1883), “A Roman Singer” (1884), “Zoroaster” (1885), and “A Tale of a Lonely Parish” (1886). The variety of sources from which Mr. Crawford drew his material is strikingly suggested in the titles of his representative novels, of which the following may be mentioned: “Paul Patoff” (1887), “Saracinesca” (1887), “In the Palace of the King” (1900), “A Lady of Rome” (1906), “Arethusa” (1907). He was the author of more than forty books, including important studies of Italian history and several plays. Of his novels it is conceded that those depicting Italian life and character are the most valuable; and of these, three, constituting the “Saracinesca” series, are the best.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937), an American author who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Age of Innocence” (1920).

Set in 1870's New York City, Wharton examines upper-class values and morals in all their conventionality and tradition, rigidity and hypocrisy, at times with her subtle irony and wit. Edith Wharton herself broke out of the conventional mores of her time to become the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Wharton had a great love of architecture, gardens and design and wrote numerous articles and essays on the subjects including “Italian Villas and Their Gardens” (1904). As the author of numerous best-selling award-winning works including novels, short stories, and travel essays she has inspired many other authors. Some of her works have been adapted to the stage and film and many are still in print today.

Her other publications include collection of short stories “The Greater Inclination” (1899), “Crucial Instances” (1901), “The Descent of Man and Other Stories” (1904), “The Hermit and the Wild Woman” (1908), “Xingu and Other Stories” (1917), and “The World Over” (1936). She also wrote ghost stories collected in “Tales of Men and Ghosts” (1910), “Here and Beyond” (1926), and “Ghosts” (1937), many previously appearing in magazines. Her next novels were “The Valley of Decision” (1902) and “Sanctuary” (1903). The same year she met Henry James, who would become a good friend and confidante. “House of Mirth” (1905) became that years’ best-seller. “Madame de Treymes” (1907) was followed by “The Fruit of the Tree” (1907)

Familiar themes of Wharton’s are seen in “Ethan Frome” including the conflict between societal mores and the pursuit of happiness. “The Reef” (1912) follows four Americans in France and is full of suspense and Wharton’s masterful character developments. It was followed by another highly acclaimed work “The Custom of the Country” (1913) which satirically examines America’s nouveau riche class in all their desperate and at times greedy ruthlessness.

When World War I began Wharton was in North Africa, but soon devoted much of her time in assisting refugees and orphans in France and Belgium. She helped raise funds for their support, and was involved with creating and running hostels and schools for them. She aided women in self-sufficiency by finding them means of employment. With her good friend Walter Berry she toured battlefields and hospitals and tended to the sick which resulted in her diary and essays in “Fighting France” (1915) and “The Marne” (1918).

“The Bunner Sisters” and “Summer” (1917) were published as Wharton’s classic contributions to women’s literature. Also in 1917 she traveled to Morocco of which she wrote about in her collection of travel essays “In Morocco” (1920). Her collection of essays “French Ways and Their Meaning” (1919) was followed by “The Age of Innocence” (1920). In 1921 Wharton sailed to America to receive the Pulitzer Prize for it. Her highly acclaimed “The Glimpses of the Moon” (1922) was followed by “A Son At The Front” (1923). Further works include “Old New York” (1924), “The Mother’s Recompense” (1925), “The Writing of Fiction” (essays, 1925), “Twelve Poems” (1926), “Twilight Sleep” (1927), “The Children” (1928), “Hudson River Bracketed” (1929) and it’s sequel “The Gods Arrive” (1932), “Certain People” (1930), “Human Nature” (1933), and “A Backward Glance” (autobiography, 1934).

In her stories and novels, Edith Wharton(1862–1937) scrutinized the upper-class, Eastern-seaboard society in which she had grown up. One of her finest books “The Age of Innocence” centers on a man who chooses to marry a conventional, socially acceptable woman rather than a fascinating outsider.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) – an American journalist, poet, and author who wrote “The Red Badge of Courage: an episode of the American Civil War” (1895).

For many years he had been writing, but his first novel, which he published himself “Maggie, a Girl of the Streets: a Story of New York” (1893) was unsuccessful. The grim story of a prostitute and tenement life did however gain the notice of editor and author William Dean Howells.

After school Crane began writing sketches and short stories for newspapers, living in New York's bowery district. Started as a serial, “The Red Badge of Courage” gained Crane almost instant fame and the esteem. Crane's ensuing travels inspired further works including "The Black Riders and Other Lines" (1895), "The Little Regiment" (1896), "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" (1897), The Third Violet (1897), "The Blue Hotel" (1898), "War Is Kind" (1899), “The Monster and Other Stories” (1899), “Active Service” (1899), and, said to be his finest short work, "The Open Boat" (1898), a fictionalised account of his own harrowing experience adrift in a boat.

Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945)

Dreiser began writing with his first novel “Sister Carrie”, where he portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman.

Dreiser continued his career by publishing “The Financier” (1912) and “The Titan” (1914), both of which began his trilogy about the rise of a tycoon. Fame arrived with his “An American Tragedy” (1925), a story based on newspaper accounts of a sensational murder case. It is about a young man trying to succeed in a materialistic society. This novel was turned into a Broadway drama and later sold to Hollywood.

With his new success, Dreiser took a trip to Russia but came away unimpressed. He chronicled his observations in “Dreiser Looks at Russia” (1928). Dreiser became a communist in later years, and focused his attention on writing political treatises such as “America is Worth Saving” (1941).

Considered by many as the leader of Naturalism in American writing, Dreiser is also remembered for his stinging criticism of the genteel tradition and of what Howells described as the "smiling aspects of life" typifying America. In his fiction, Dreiser deals with social problems and with characters who struggle to survive. His sympathetic treatment of a "morally loose" woman in “Sister Carrie” was called immoral and he suffered at the hands of publishers. One of Dreiser's favorite fictional devices was the use of contrast between the rich and the poor, the urbane and the unsophisticated, and the power brokers and the helpless. While he wrote about "raw" experiences of life in his earlier works, in his later writing he considered the impact of economic society on the lives of people in the remarkable trilogy – “The Financier”, “The Titan”, and “The Stoic”.

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

She was a passionate advocate for the "new" in art, her literary friendships grew to include writers as diverse as F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. It was to Hemingway that Stein coined the phrase "the lost generation" to describe the expatriate writers living abroad between the wars.

By 1913, Stein's support of cubist painters and her increasingly avant-garde writing caused a split with her brother Leo, who moved to Florence. Her first book “Three Lives” was published in 1909. She followed it with “Tender Buttons” in 1914.

“Tender Buttons” clearly showed the profound effect modern painting had on her writing. In these small prose poems, images and phrases come together in often surprising ways – similar in manner to cubist painting. Her writing, characterized by its use of words for their associations and sounds rather than their meanings, received considerable interest from other artists and writers, but did not find a wide audience.

Among Stein's most influential works are “The Making of Americans” (1925); “How to Write” (1931); “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” (1933), which was a best-seller; and “Stanzas in Meditation and Other Poems [1929-1933]” (1956).

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. In the early teens of the twentieth century, he opened a seminal exchange of work and ideas between British and American writers.

His own significant contributions to poetry begin with his promulgation of Imagism, a movement in poetry which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry – stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language and foregoing traditional rhyme and meter. His later work, for nearly fifty years, focused on the encyclopedic epic poem he entitled “The Cantos”.

In 1924, he moved to Italy; during this period of voluntary exile, Pound became involved in Fascist politics, and did not return to the United States until 1945, when he was arrested on charges of treason for broadcasting Fascist propaganda by radio to the United States during the Second World War. In 1948 he got prize for the “Pisan Cantos”. His work is complex, sometimes obscure, with multiple references to other art forms and to a vast range of literature, both Western and Eastern. He influenced many other poets, notably T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), another expatriate.

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)

Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense. Eliot's poetry from “Prufrock” (1917) to the “Four Quartets” (1943) reflects the development of a Christian writer: the early work, especially “The Waste Land” (1922), is essentially negative, the expression of that horror from which the search for a higher world arises. In “Ash Wednesday” (1930) and the “Four Quartets” this higher world becomes more visible; nonetheless Eliot has always taken care not to become a «religious poet» and often belittled the power of poetry as a religious force. However, his dramas “Murder in the Cathedral” (1935) and “The Family Reunion” (1939) are more openly Christian apologies. In his essays, especially the later ones, Eliot advocates a traditionalism in religion, society, and literature that seems at odds with his pioneer activity as a poet. But although the Eliot of “Notes towards the Definition of Culture” (1948) is an older man than the poet of “The Waste Land”, it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism comprising past and present in constant mutual interaction. Eliot's plays “Murder in the Cathedral” (1935), “The Family Reunion” (1939), “The Cocktail Party” (1949), “The Confidential Clerk” (1954), and “The Elder Statesman” (1959) were published in one volume in 1962; “Collected Poems 1909-62” appeared in 1963. Eliot wrote spare, cerebral poetry, carried by a dense structure of symbols. In “The Waste Land”, he embodied a jaundiced vision of post–World War I society in fragmented, haunted images. Like Pound's, Eliot's poetry could be highly allusive, and some editions of “The Waste Land” come with footnotes supplied by the poet. In 1948 Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Stein, Pound and Eliot, along with Henry James before them, demonstrate the growth of an international perspective in American literature, and not simply because they spend long periods of time overseas. American writers had long looked to European models for inspiration, but whereas the literary breakthroughs of the mid-19th century came from finding distinctly American styles and themes, writers from this period were finding ways of contributing to a flourishing international literary scene, not as imitators but as equals.

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