Henry James at Work Book

A cute little reminiscence of Henry James by his amanuensis. Bosanquet remembers James's habits, schedule, likes and dislikes, and some of his sayings. The pages are dense with interesting facts, but it's also a breezy, readable thing, too. Bosanquet and James seemed to get along really well. She doesn't linger over their personal friendship, but she obviously held him in high esteem and he felt very comfortable with her.

My favourite part is where she talks about how his decision to stop writing things by hand and start dictating everything to an amanuensis changed his style. Suddenly there was no different between talking and writing, and so his way of talking and his way of writing converged. That's partly why his late style is so maddening -- it really is just off-the-cuff rambling. It also meant that he could no longer have a conversation without lapsing into his Jamesian style. He would even talk that way when ordering a train ticket.

I enjoyed this little book.