In the Cage

Henry James's 1898 novella In the Cage (written in the same year as the more well-known The Turn of the Screw) is a sly, slight, vaguely sentimental work but one that acts as a fine introduction to this most convoluted of writers. Exact ("exacting" yet with a pointillist's precision) is the word most often used to describe James's prose but very often the modern reader will find his hesitant, peda...