Henry James was one of the great American literary critics, but James was better known as a novelist and short-story writer (Magill 750). In the nineteenth century James was considered to be an important and influential writer. James's writing career has been separated into three phases. ...

In the section entitled "What is Literary Theory?" in Contemporary Literary Criticism, the authors present five essays dealing with literary theory. The first two essays discuss the grounds of theory while the others discuss the historical activity of theory. In their discussions of theor...