“The place suggested a convent with the modern improvements—an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken, might be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, though monotonous, might be of a cheerful cast.”

American-British author

Henry James was an American-British author, and a major figure in the shift from literary realism to literary modernism. He lived from 1843 to 1916. He is widely read as one of the leading novelists in English, known for fiction that sits between the detailed social world of realism and the more inward concerns of modern writing. He was the son of theologian Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.