A London Life is a novella by Henry James, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1888. The plot revolves around a crumbling marriage and its impact on many other people, especially Laura Wing, the sister of the soon-to-be-divorced wife. Laura is a classic Jamesian "central consciousness," whose reflections and emotions color the presentation of the storyline and the other characters. The tale is notable for its straightforward, even hard-edged approach to sexuality and divorce. This might reflect the influence of French naturalism on James during the 1880s.

Laura Wing, an impoverished American girl, is visiting her sister Selina Berrington in London. Selina's husband Lionel, boorish and often drunk, is preparing to divorce his wife for her adultery with Charlie Crispin. Laura challenges Selina about her affair and doubts Selina's protestations of innocence. Lady Davenant, an elderly friend of the family, counsels Laura not to take her sister's marital troubles so hard.

A Small Boy and Others is a book of autobiography by Henry James published in 1913. The book covers James' earliest years and discusses his intellectually active family, his intermittent schooling, and his first trips to Europe.

This memoir tells of a precocious boy who loved the sights and sounds of his childhood but felt reticent about full participation in life. The note is sounded from the first chapters, as James recounts the limitations-and rewards-of the child he was:

"For there was the very pattern and measure of all he was to demand: just to be somewhere-almost anywhere would do-and somehow receive an impression or an accession, feel a relation or a vibration. He was to go without many things, ever so many-as all people do in whom contemplation takes so much the place of action; but everywhere...he was to enjoy more than anything the so far from showy practice of wondering and dawdling and gaping: he was really, I think, much to profit by it."

A Little Tour in France is a book of travel writing by American writer Henry James. Originally published under the title En Province in 1883-1884 as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly, the book recounts a six-week tour James made of many provincial towns in France, including Tours, Bourges, Nantes, Toulouse, Arles and several others. The first book publication was in 1884. A second, extensively revised edition was published in 1900.

The Sacred Fount is a novel by Henry James, first published in 1901. This strange, often baffling book concerns an unnamed narrator who attempts to discover the truth about the love lives of his fellow guests at a weekend party in the English countryside. He spurns the "detective and keyhole" methods as ignoble, and instead tries to decipher these relationships purely from the behavior and appearance of each guest. He expends huge resources of energy and ingenuity on his theories, much to the bemusement of some people at the party.

As he waits for the train to take him to a weekend party in the country, the narrator notices that Gilbert Long seems much more assured and lively than before. He also sees that Mrs. Brissenden (nicknamed "Mrs. Briss") is much younger-looking than her husband, though she's actually ten years older. The narrator begins to theorize that Long and Mrs. Briss are getting their vitality, vampire-like, from the "sacred fount" of their sexual partners' energy. At first, the narrator theorizes that the source of Long's newfound assurance and intelligence is a certain Lady John.