Affairs of the Heart: Classic Tales of Love and Loss Based on the Fiction of Henry James features Diane Rigg, Margaret Tyzack, Pamela Brown, Patricia Routledge, Ian Ogilivy, Anton Rodgers, Jeremy Brett, Derek Jacobi, Eileen Atkins, Sinead Cusack, Edward Harwicke, Cheryl Campbell, David Massey, and Christopher Casenove in 13 hour-long episodes based on Washington Square, “The Marriage,” The Aspern Papers, “Covering End,” Wings of the Dove, “Glasses, “The Tone of Time,” “The Real Thing,” “Lord Beauprey,” An International Episode, “The Beach of Desolation,” Daisy Miller,” “Nona Vincent,” and “The Great Condition.” Acorn Media produced these two sets in an engaging package. If you’re a fan of Henry James, you’ll love these wonderful productions! GRADE: A
Never a Henry James fan so these are probably not for me. Instead I’ll continue to binge my way through Peaky Blinders.
Steve, Henry James had several phases in his long career. Some phases I like better than others.
Very interesting. I had no idea they’d done these. They’ve done some good adaptations of James on Masterpiece Theatre – The Spoils of Poynton in Season I and The Golden Bowl in Season II come immediately to mind. The less said about The American with Matthew Modine, the better.
Jeff, THE SPOILS OF POYNTON is one of my favorite Henry James stories.
WINGS OF THE DOVE in an hour? Might be worth a look.
Bill, WINGS OF THE DOVE in a hour…think compression.
As a Henry James fan girl, I’d be interested–but I feel the longer works would suffer from being condensed. My favorite adaptations remain “The Golden Bowl” from the very earliest days of Masterpiece Theater, as Jeff mentions above, and “The Innocents”, an movie adaptation of THE TURN OF THE SCREW, starring my namesake Deborah Kerr. I’d love to see adaptations of “The Real Thing” and “The Beast in the Jungle”–but so much of what happens in those stories is internal, I’m not sure how successful any adaptation would be.
Deb, your local public library may have copies of AFFAIRS OF THE HEART so you could check out how the BBC handled these Henry James stories. I plan to re-read the stories and then watch these DVDs. I’ll report back when I’m done, probably in August.
I had no idea this was out on DVD – I have only ever read about it. Marvellous news, thanks George.
Sergio, I saw these two sets online for very reasonable prices…so I bought them! I plan to reread the stories and then watch the episodes.
do you ever sleep??
Maggie, I sleep just fine. I just don’t watch much TV.
Interesting – he’s almost unknown in Germany (though he spoke German and claimed Goethe as an influence – if you follow wiki …) and I don’t remember reading anything from him, though I was an avid reader in my youth – at least two novels a week …
Wiki is also silent on his private life – never married, just a hint that he was gay? In those days of course that would have been extremely bad for his career …
Wolf, a lot of critics think Henry James was gay. Yet James wrote about women better than most American writers of the time did.
He was probably gay in the sense that his sexual attraction was primarily toward men, but he was in all likelihood completely celebrate and repressed sexually. Colm Toibin’s THE MASTER does an excellent job of presenting both the public and private sides of James’s life.
Celibate.
/Stupid autocorrect!
Deb, you’re right. Henry James was repressed. He poured all of his energies into his work.