American-born writer, gifted with talents in literature, psychology, and philosophy. James wrote 20 novels, 112 stories, 12 plays and a number of literary criticism. His models were Dickens, Balzac, and Hawthorne. James once said that he learned more of the craft of writing from Balzac "than from anyone else".
"A novel is in its broadest sense a personal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression." (from The Art of Fiction, 1885)
Henry James was born in New York City into a wealthy family. His father, Henry James Sr., was one of the best-known intellectuals in mid-nineteenth-century America, whose friends included Thoreau, Emerson and Hawthorne. James made little money from his novels. Once his friend, the writer Edith Wharton, secretly arranged him a royal advance of $8,000 for THE IVORY TOWER (1917), but the money actually came from Wharton's royalty account with the publisher. When Wharton sent him a letter bemoaning her unhappy marriage, James replied: "Keep making the movements of life."
In his youth James traveled back and forth between Europe and America.
ظل هنري جيمس يتنقل بين اوروبا وامريكا فش شبابه
He studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn At the age of nineteen he briefly attended Harvard Law School, but was more interested in literature than studying law.
تلقى دروس في كل من جنيف ولندن وباريس ودرس لمدة قصيرة في كلية القانون عندما كان في الـ 19 لكنه تحول الى الادب الذي فضلة على القانون
James published his first short story, 'A Tragedy of Errors' two years later, and then devoted himself to literature. In 1866-69 and 1871-72 he was contributor to the Nation and Atlantic Monthly.
اول قصة نشرها كانت بعنوان " تراجيديا الاخطاء".
From an early age James had read the classics of English, American, French and German literature, and Russian classics in translation.
His first novel, WATCH AND WARD (1871), appeared first serially in the Atlantic. James wrote it while he was traveling through Venice and Paris. Watch and Ward tells a story of a bachelor who adopts a twelve-year-old girl and plans to marry her.
اول رواية له كانت تتحدث عن شخص اعزب يتنى طفله عمرها 12 سنة ويخطط من اجل ان تيزوجها
James himself was a homosexual, but sensitive to basic sexual differences and the fact that he was a male.
كان هنري جيمس لوطيا
Henry James, OM (15 April 1843(1843-04-15) – 28 February 1916(1916-02-28)) was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism.
James spent the last 53 years of his life in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death.

Good novels, to James, show life in action and are, most importantly, interesting.
Leon Edel argued in his psychoanalytic biography that James was deeply traumatised by the opening night uproar that greeted Guy Domville, and that it plunged him into a prolonged depression.

Notes of a Son and Brother is an autobiography by Henry James published in 1914. The book covers James' early manhood and tells of "the obscure hurt" that kept him out of the Civil War, his first efforts at writing fiction, and the early death of his beloved cousin, Minny Temple, from tuberculosis.
في مذكراته بعنوان" ملاحظات ابن واخيه" والتي نشرت عام 1914 ويغطي الكتاب مرحلة الشباب يتحدث عن الالم الذي اصابه لعدم مشاركة الولايات المتحدة بالحرب العالمية الاولى
كما تغطي المذكرات جهوده الاولى في كتابة الادب
وتغطي ايضا موت قريبة التي احبها المبكر ( ماني تمبل) من مرض السل.

. James himself was exempted from service due to a back injury, the "obscure hurt" he suffered while putting out a fire with the local volunteer fire department.
كان هنري جيمس قد اعفى من المشاركة في الحرب الاهلية بسبب اصابة في ظهره وقعت بينما كان يساعد في اطفاء نار كمتطوع

The final chapter of the book covers the ill health and death (at 25) of James' spirited and appealing cousin, Minny Temple. James quotes extensively from her touching letters and says that, for himself and William, her death was "the end of our youth
في الفصل الاخير من مذكراته كتب هنري جيمس عن مرض وموت ابنة خاله ( ماني تمبل) حيث يقتبس جيمس من رسائلها فقرات مؤلمة جدا ويقول ان موتها بالنسبة له ولاخيه وليم مثل نهاية الشباب"

In the Introduction to Michael Wood's Essay About the Mystery of Henry James's Testicles , by Jonathan Ames one finds:

-امضى 53 سنة من عمره في انجلترى وحصل على الجنسية الانجليزية قبل موته عام 1915
-اصيب بكآبة مزمنة وحادة عندما فشلت احدى مسرحياته
-اصبحت اعماله ابلغ اثرا عندما بدأ يتطرق الى التحليل النفسي في اعماله
-رفض هنري جيمس الزواج واطلق على نسفه اسم العازب
-البعض عزى عدم زيجته على الرغم من حبه لقريبته لخوفه من ممارسة الجنس وهو مرض كان مصاب به لكن البعض الاخر ظل يعتقد ان سر يكمن في لوطيته وهناك في رسائله ما يشير على شذوذوه الجنسي.