He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective reformer and a very indifferent artist.It seemed to him that the glow of happiness must ne found either in action, of some immensely solid kind,on behalf of an idea, or in producing a masterpiece in one of the arts.

As more material became available to scholars including the diaries of contemporaries and hundreds of affectionate and sometimes erotic letters written by James to younger men the picture of neurotic celibacy gave way to a portrait of a closeted homosexual although as author Terry Eagleton has stated ". Strether is to bring the young man back to the family business but he encounters unexpected complications. James was one of the great letter-writers of any era.

The concept of a good or bad novel is judged solely upon whether the author is good or bad. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with Europe and Europeans.