Henry James was born in New York City in 1843, the son of theologian Henry James, Sr., and brother of philosopher William James. He entered Harvard Law School at nineteen but soon quit to write and travel in Europe – to Paris, for example, where he met Flaubert, Turgenev, George Eliot, and Zola. Settling in London in 1876, he gained international fame with Daisy Miller, which scandalized Victorian society and sold thousands of copies. Never again would he equal its popularity, but his increasingly sophisticated and meticulously observed works, such as The Golden Bowl and The Ambassadors, established him as the first master of psychological fiction. He died in England in 1916.
His novella, The Coxon Fund, is also a part of The Art Of The Novella series.