House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family (ISBN 0805090207)

Enthralling and groundbreaking:
I've been reading books by and about the various Jameses for years and this is one of the absolute best for its range, wit, compassion, and modernity. The author isn't afraid to look openly at the dark side of this remarkable family, but he also doesn't overdraw conclusions. What I like best is that Fisher gives you a profound sense of the fault lines in the James clan, the allegiances, the jealousies, the ways in which they depended on one another and undermined each other. And the family exists in each historic period it passes through, so that the impact of technological and cultural shifts is always present. His grasp of the material is flawless, his insight sharp, and his writing is so good I read some passages aloud. This book marks a new era in James studies, but you don't have to know anything about the clan to be riveted by this complex story of wealth, ambition, despair, defeat, genius.

A Fascinating and Intimate Journey!:
I love this biography. I grew up in the Albany-Saratoga area, lived in New York for many years and now live in Boston. Paul Fisher brings these places alive through his beautiful writing of this complex, troubled yet lovable family. It's a great book.

An Excellent Family Biography:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Fisher presents detailed, compassionate portraits of seven (plus) dauntingly complex individuals, as well as providing a highly textured sense of time and place. This biography goes far beyond recounting pedigrees and achievements to convey a real sense of the individual human being (in this case, each individual in the James family). I particularly enjoyed Fisher's careful attention to the less prominent family members. The "intimate" point of view (rendering events from the perspectives of family members) is compelling and effective in recreating this fascinating family. The author's opinions are presented respectfully and provide much food for thought without reducing the complexity and ambiguity of real people and events. This book--its rendering of a generation, its stories, its wonderful photographs--is a gift.

House of Wits: A detailed glimpse through the literary keyhold at the brilliantly eccentric famiily of Henry James Sr.:
Dr. James Fisher is a professor of American Literature at Wellesley College in Boston. He is an expert on the family of Henry James Sr. His new volume of over 600 densely written pages is a detailed exploration into the lives of this important nineteenth century family of authors, oddballs, soldiers and scientists. Henry James Sr was a Princeton Seminary dropout who was wealthy due to a huge inheritance from his father. The James came from Albany, New York where HJ Sr. was born. He lost a leg during a horrible childhood accident in which he was attempting to assist in the extinguishing of a fire. James was a scholar of Swedenborg and his philosophy. He wed the plain but rich Mary and they embarked on a long marriage filled with traumas enought to keep psychiatrists busy for aeons! James Sr. was an alcoholic but gave up John Barleycorn in his later years. He was in the transcendentalist circle of Concord intellectuals counting the eminent Ralph Waldo Emerson as among his friends. James traveled widely in Europe where he got to know such luminaries as the crusty Scots philosopher Thomas Carlyle and the novelist William Makepeace Thackery, author of "Vanity Fair." Mary was a longsuffering wife as she put up with his dalliances with other women (none of which was probably consumatted) and his minor fame on the periphery of literary and lecturing fame. What a house of wits was produced by these two midcentury New Yorkers! The five children were: William James-the eminent Harvard doctor who was the leading proponent of the pragmatism philosophy. He was the author of "The Variety of Religious Experiences". James married late and was neurotic always being worried about his health (as were all the James!). William had an intense rivalry with his younger brother Henry though the two loved each other. Henry James-Born in 1843 he was the author of over 20 novels, essays, short stories and travel pieces which have won him literary immortality. Among his novels are "The Wings of the Dove"; "The American"; "The Ambassadors" "The Golden Bowl"; "What Maisie Knew" and "The Portrait of a Lady." Henry was a homosexual who had many close relationships with men. His closest female friends were two authors: Constance Fenimore Wolston and Edith Wharton. Henry lived in England for over twenty years becoming a British subject in 1915. He was angry with the USA for its refusal to enter the war. James won the Order of Merit. He was secretive, quiet and kind. He became disillusioned with his failure as a playwright and the loss of his parents and sibilings who all preceded him in death. It is impossible to understand him without examining his family. Fisher has done this! Wilkie and Bob were the two James brothers who saw combat in the Civil War. They were failures in marriage and in life. Bob died as an alcoholic and Wilkie never made a success of himself living in Wisconsin in a number of boring job. Alice died at 38. She was a woman who had major health problems though she has won a measure of fame for her diary. She never wed. Alice was known for her intelligence and wit. She was a lesbian who lived with a woman. Alice was brilliant but was restricted by the second class citizenship meted out to women in the Victorian era. The James family was dysfunctional but produced geniuses in William and Henry. The Fisher work allows us to get a better understanding of them and their time. Boston, New York, Paris, London, Venice and other locals of the James travels are well described. The James were constant travelers as they sought to flee their restricted lives of study and literary labor. It is often hard to make the lives of intellectuals interesting but Fisher has succeeded in an outstanding book of biographical inquiry and insight. This book will become essential in the study of any of the James.

A terrific biography:
this is one of the best biographies ever. The story of 8 members of the James family, plus vignettes of friends and of the national life of the country during their lives. This should win one of the major prizes for biography.