The Wings of the Dove Study Guide

Henry James was an American British novelist known for his nuanced and complex psychological examinations of his characters. James was born in New York City in 1843. He had three brothers, including William, who became a prominent philosopher and psychologist and published books including The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience. James’s sister, Alice, lived with health issues that were largely dismissed at the time, but she became well-known for her diaries, which were published after her death. Henry James attended Harvard University before becoming a prolific author of both fiction and literary criticism. He wrote more than 20 novels and published over 100 short stories. He is often considered a bridge figure between the literary realism of the 19th century and the literary modernism of the early 20th century. James published his first novel, Watch and Ward, serially in The Atlantic Monthly in 1871 and as a book in 1878. He is perhaps most well-known for his novels The Turn of the Screw (1898) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). The Wings of the Dove, published in 1902, comes from the later period of James’s career. James’s works often deal with themes of culture clash between morally driven idealists from the U.S. and intelligent and pragmatic but often corrupted figures from England. James became a naturalized English citizen in 1915, one year before his death. 

Many of James’s novels, including The Wings of the Dove, touch on themes of an idealistic if naïve American confronting the worldly but corrupt remnants of aristocracy in England in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this way, James’s novels trace the aftereffects of the Revolutionary War between the British Empire and American revolutionary forces, which led to the founding of the United States. That rupture of the American Revolution then gave rise to the bifurcated culture between Americans and English people that James frequently explores in his novels. The Wings of the Dove takes place in London high society during the early 20th century, placing the events of the novel at the beginning of King Edward VII’s reign in England, which lasted from 1901 to 1910. The Edwardian Era in England was defined by its strict social hierarchy and elaborate customs and manners, both of which are on display in The Wings of the Dove. The Edwardian Era also represented a time of political change, as the Liberal Party regained political power in 1906, which led to reforms that granted more rights to people previously denied political power, including women and people from the working class. The Edwardian Era succeeded the Victorian Era in England, which lasted for Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 to 1901.

Like The Wings of the Dove, several of Henry James’s novels take up themes of Americans coming into contact with English society. One such novel is The Portrait of a Lady, which is among James’s best-known works. Similar to The Wings of the Dove, The Portrait of a Lady takes place mostly in England and Italy and involves two characters scheming to try and swindle another character out of her fortune. Literary critics often consider James as a transitional figure between the literary realism of the 19th century to the literary modernism of the early 20th century. Notable predecessors who influenced James’s work include Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens. Dickens’s best-known novels include A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield. Hawthorne is best known for his novel The Scarlet Letter, as well as his short fiction. James also wrote a book of literary analysis about Hawthorne titled Hawthorne. James’s roving descriptions of his characters’ psychology are often considered a predecessor of the stream of consciousness approach that became a hallmark of modernist literature. Some novels that utilize that stream of consciousness approach include Ulysses by James Joyce, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.