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A black marble stone in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, unveiled in 1976, reads: “Henry James O.M. Novelist. New York 1843. London 1916.” Between those two cities lies most of his fiction. Born in Manhattan, the brother of the philosopher William James, he left Harvard Law School, moved to Europe in 1875 and wrote about Americans abroad: a young woman from Schenectady who dies of “Roman fever” after a night at the Colosseum, an heiress from Albany who marries the wrong man, a 55-year-old from Massachusetts sent to Paris to bring a son home. In July 1915, tired of waiting for America to enter the war, he became a British subject. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1877–1904 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Henry James’s best-known book is The Portrait of a Lady (1881). His other key books include Daisy Miller (1878), Washington Square (1880), the ghost story The Turn of the Screw (1898) and the three late novels The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). Start with The Portrait of a Lady; below is which of the late novels to try first, and why the order matters.
Where to Start with Henry James
If you want the novel everyone means
→ The Portrait of a Lady (1881) — Isabel Archer, a fortune and a bad marriage in Rome.
If you want something short
→ Daisy Miller (1878) — the novella that made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic.
If you want a ghost story
→ The Turn of the Screw (1898) — a governess, two children and two dead servants at Bly.
If you want the late style
→ The Ambassadors (1903) — the novel James himself called his best.
13 Henry James Books, in Order
The American
Christopher Newman, a self-made American businessman, comes to Paris in search of culture and a wife and becomes engaged to Claire de Cintré, a widow from the aristocratic Bellegarde family. Her mother and brother break off the match because he is in trade. Newman obtains evidence of a family crime that could ruin them, and in the end does not use it.
Daisy Miller
First published in The Cornhill Magazine in June and July 1878. In Vevey, Switzerland, the expatriate Frederick Winterbourne meets Daisy Miller, a young American who goes about unchaperoned; in Rome she is seen everywhere with the Italian Giovanelli, and after a night visit to the Colosseum she dies of “Roman fever”. It was an immediate popular success, though some critics called it an insult to American girls. Peter Bogdanovich filmed it in 1974 with Cybill Shepherd.
The Europeans
A short novel that reverses his usual direction: two Europeanised siblings, Eugenia, a baroness in a morganatic marriage, and her brother Felix, a painter, visit their puritan American cousins, the Wentworths, outside Boston. Felix settles in; Eugenia does not. Merchant Ivory filmed it in 1979 with Lee Remick as the baroness.
Washington Square
Catherine Sloper, a plain and shy heiress living on Washington Square in New York, is courted by the charming, penniless Morris Townsend. Her father, Dr Austin Sloper, is convinced Townsend wants only her money and threatens to disinherit her. Adapted for the stage by Ruth and Augustus Goetz in 1947 and then filmed as The Heiress (1949), which won Olivia de Havilland the Oscar for Best Actress.
The Portrait of a Lady
Serialised in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan’s Magazine in 1880–81. Isabel Archer, a young American, turns down two suitors, inherits a fortune and is drawn by the expatriates Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond into a marriage in Rome that turns cold; she learns that Osmond’s daughter Pansy is Merle’s child. The ending leaves open what she will do. It is usually counted his most popular long novel, and Jane Campion filmed it in 1996 with Nicole Kidman.
The Bostonians
Olive Chancellor, a Boston campaigner for women’s rights, takes up Verena Tarrant, a young speaker with a gift for moving a crowd. Olive’s distant cousin Basil Ransom, a conservative lawyer from Mississippi, falls for Verena and wants to marry her and take her out of public life. James Ivory’s 1984 film earned Vanessa Redgrave an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
The Princess Casamassima
Hyacinth Robinson, a London bookbinder and the illegitimate son of an English lord and a French seamstress, is drawn into a circle of revolutionaries and pledges to carry out an assassination. At the same time the beautiful Princess Casamassima, who first appeared in Roderick Hudson, introduces him to the world of art and wealth he has sworn to destroy.
The Aspern Papers
Serialised in The Atlantic Monthly in March–May 1888. A nameless editor takes rooms in a Venetian palazzo to get hold of the letters of the dead American poet Jeffrey Aspern, kept by his former lover Juliana Bordereau and her niece. Caught at her desk, he is called a “publishing scoundrel”. James based it on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s stepsister.
What Maisie Knew
Maisie Farange, a small girl whose parents divorce and both remarry, is passed back and forth between them and their new partners. The adults’ affairs are told almost entirely through what the child sees and slowly understands. It was during this book that James began dictating his fiction to a typist.
The Turn of the Screw
Serialised in Collier’s Weekly from January to April 1898 and collected in The Two Magics that October. A young governess at the country house of Bly becomes convinced that the ghosts of her dead predecessor Miss Jessel and the valet Peter Quint are after the children Miles and Flora. In 1934 Edmund Wilson argued the ghosts were her hallucinations, and critics have argued about it since. Adaptations include Benjamin Britten’s opera (1954), the film The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020).
The Wings of the Dove
Kate Croy and the journalist Merton Densher are secretly engaged but have no money. When they meet Milly Theale, a rich young American who is seriously ill, Kate plans for Densher to court her so that he will inherit. The plot plays out in a rented palazzo in Venice. Iain Softley’s 1997 film, with Helena Bonham Carter as Kate, received four Oscar nominations.
The Ambassadors
Serialised in the North American Review through 1903, though written in 1900–01, before The Wings of the Dove. Lambert Strether, 55, from Woollett, Massachusetts, is sent to Paris by his fiancée Mrs Newsome to bring her son Chad home to the family business, and finds Chad transformed by Madame de Vionnet. In his preface to the New York Edition James called it the best of his novels.
The Golden Bowl
His last completed major novel, published by Scribner in November 1904. Maggie Verver, daughter of the American collector Adam Verver, marries the Italian Prince Amerigo, not knowing he has had an affair with her friend Charlotte Stant; Charlotte then marries Maggie’s father. A gilded crystal bowl with a hidden crack gives Maggie the proof, and she works quietly to separate the lovers. James Ivory filmed it in 2000 with Uma Thurman and Kate Beckinsale.
In What Order to Read Henry James
None of the books is a sequel, so you can read them in any order; only The Princess Casamassima brings back a character, the Princess, from his 1875 novel Roderick Hudson. Publication order does matter for difficulty. His work is usually divided into three phases: the clearer early novels about Americans in Europe up to The Portrait of a Lady; a middle period of shorter novels, tales and plays in the 1890s; and the long, dense late novels of 1902–1904.
Read the early books first and the late ones last. The Ambassadors is the easiest way into the late style, and The Golden Bowl the hardest. Note that James heavily revised many of his books for the New York Edition (1907–1909), so Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady exist in two versions; editions say which text they use.
A reading path
1. Daisy Miller (1878)
2. Washington Square (1880)
3. The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
4. The Turn of the Screw (1898)
5. The Ambassadors (1903)
Everything Else Henry James Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 31 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other novels
12
12 books · 1871–1917
- 1871Watch and Wardhis first novel, serialised in 1871
- 1875Roderick Hudsonan American sculptor in Rome
- 1879Confidence
- 1888The Reverberator
- 1890The Tragic Musea novel about the theatre and politics
- 1896The Other House
- 1897The Spoils of Poynton
- 1899The Awkward Age
- 1901The Sacred Fount
- 1911The Outcry
- 1917The Ivory Towerunfinished, published after his death
- 1917The Sense of the Pastunfinished, published after his death
Story collections
4
4 books · 1893–1919
- 1893Terminations
- 1900The Soft Side
- 1903The Better Sortincludes “The Beast in the Jungle”
- 1919Travelling Companionsearly tales, collected after his death
Travel writing
6
6 books · 1875–1909
- 1875Transatlantic Sketches
- 1883Portraits of Places
- 1884A Little Tour in France
- 1905English Hours
- 1907The American Scenehis return to the United States after twenty years
- 1909Italian Hours
Memoirs
3
3 books · 1913–1917
- 1913A Small Boy and Others
- 1914Notes of a Son and Brother
- 1917The Middle Yearsunfinished, published after his death
Criticism and plays
6
6 books · 1878–1934
- 1878French Poets and Novelists
- 1879Hawthorne
- 1888Partial Portraitsessays, including “The Art of Fiction”
- 1895Guy Domvillethe play booed on its opening night
- 1914Notes on Novelists
- 1934The Art of the Novelhis New York Edition prefaces, collected
The years · 1843–1916
Quick facts about Henry James
- Known for
- Henry James is known for his novels of Americans in Europe and for a late style so dense and exact that it changed what the psychological novel could do.
- 1843
- Born in New York City
- 1875
- Moves to Europe for good
- 1895
- Guy Domville booed in London
- 1916
- Order of Merit; dies in London
- Born
- 15 April 1843, Washington Place, New York City
- Family
- Brother of the philosopher William James and the diarist Alice James
- Homes
- Paris from 1875, then London; Lamb House in Rye, Sussex, from 1898
- Citizenship
- British subject from July 1915, a protest at American neutrality in the war
- Honours
- Order of Merit (1916); nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1911, 1912 and 1916
- Died
- 28 February 1916, Chelsea, London; his ashes are in the family plot in Cambridge, Massachusetts
The red mark is 1881: The Portrait of a Lady, the high point of his early period.
How Henry James Writes: Americans Abroad, From the Inside
His early subject is what critics call the international theme: Americans meeting Europe. The innocent party is usually American — Daisy Miller, Christopher Newman, Isabel Archer — and the danger comes from people who know the rules better, often Americans who have lived abroad too long, like Winterbourne, Osmond and Madame Merle.
His method is to tell the story through one mind. The reader of The Ambassadors knows only what Strether notices, and What Maisie Knew shows an adult scandal through what a child can understand. The Turn of the Screw takes this to its limit: because everything comes through the governess, readers still disagree about whether the ghosts exist. From What Maisie Knew on he dictated his fiction to a typist, and the sentences of the late novels grow longer, with more qualifications and fewer plain statements; whether dictation caused the change is debated.
He also wrote about how novels work, in the 1884 essay “The Art of Fiction” and in the prefaces he wrote when he revised his books for the New York Edition (1907–1909), later collected as The Art of the Novel. His friend Edith Wharton wrote about the same transatlantic society of old New York and Europe.
Frequently asked questions about Henry James’s books
How many books has Henry James written?
This page lists 44: the 13 key books and 31 more in the bibliography. Among them are 20 completed novels, two unfinished novels published in 1917, travel books, memoirs, criticism and the play Guy Domville. He also wrote more than a hundred shorter tales.
What are Henry James’s books in order?
The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1878), The Europeans (1878), Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw (1898), The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904).
Where should I start with Henry James?
With The Portrait of a Lady (1881), the high point of his clearer early style. For something shorter, try Daisy Miller or Washington Square; leave The Golden Bowl until last.
What is Henry James’s most famous book?
The Portrait of a Lady is usually counted his most popular long novel. The Turn of the Screw is his most adapted work, and Daisy Miller made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic in 1878.
Are the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw real?
James does not say. The story is told entirely by the governess, and nobody else clearly sees the ghosts. Early readers took it as a straight ghost story; in 1934 Edmund Wilson argued that the ghosts were her hallucinations, and critics have taken both sides since.
Which Henry James books have been made into films?
Many. Washington Square became The Heiress (1949), which won Olivia de Havilland an Oscar; The Turn of the Screw became The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020); Merchant Ivory filmed The Europeans (1979), The Bostonians (1984) and The Golden Bowl (2000); Jane Campion filmed The Portrait of a Lady (1996); and The Wings of the Dove (1997) had four Oscar nominations.
Why did Henry James become British?
He took British nationality in July 1915, after living in England for most of his adult life, as an implicit protest against America’s refusal to join the First World War. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1916 and died in London that February.
Was Henry James gay?
It is debated. His biographer Leon Edel presented him as celibate; Sheldon Novick challenged that in 1996, causing an uproar among James scholars, and writers including Colm Tóibín have read him as a gay writer whose secrecy shaped his style. Edel also suggested that the novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson, a close friend who died in 1894, had been in love with him, an account her biographers have disputed.
Did Henry James win the Nobel Prize?
No. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. His main honour was the Order of Merit, in 1916.
Why are Henry James’s late novels so difficult?
In The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl the sentences are long and qualified, and much of the action happens in what characters notice and leave unsaid. James was dictating to a typist by then. The Ambassadors, which he considered his best novel, is the usual way in.
Footnotes
- Henry James — Wikipedia
- Henry James bibliography — Wikipedia
- Henry James — Westminster Abbey
- The Native Henry James — Philip Horne, The Paris Review, 2016
- The Turn of the Screw — Wikipedia
- The Ambassadors (novel) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.”
— Henry James, The Ambassadors (1903)
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