Fiction · 1888
The Lesson of the Master
A young novelist, Paul Overt, is warned by the older, more celebrated writer he most admires that marriage and material comfort are fatal to real art — advice Paul takes to heart at real cost to himself, only to watch the older man's own conduct call the lesson into serious question.
Henry James published "The Lesson of the Master" in 1888, serialized in the Universal Review before its book publication, as a wry study of literary ambition, sincerity, and self-interest among writers.
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About the author
1843–1916 · Victorian
Henry James (1843–1916) was born in New York City, the son of a theologian and brother of the philosopher William James, and educated in Europe and America. He settled in England in 1876 and became a British subject in 1915. Among his novels are Roderick Hudson, The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians, What Maisie Knew, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl; among his tales, Daisy Miller, The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw (1898).
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