Henry James and the Art of Impressions

"What emerges from his discussion is a vivid account not only of the ways in which James's protagonists sift through and reflect on impressions, but also of the ways in which his characters seek to artifice and impose impressions of their own, and of how such impressions may threaten either to obscure or illuminate (or both). It is the richness and depth of this account that constitutes the value of Scholar's book. * Rob Harris, University of Bristol, Studies in Walter Pater and Aestheticism * This fully convincing take on the value of the performative impression closes a superb intellectual history. There is nothing lacking in Scholar's wonderfully discriminating, precise account ... That such a richly complex set of explanations should also flow so briskly and clearly, in such lucid prose, is remarkable. * Jesse Matz, American Literary History Online Review * Scholar's work... paints a compelling picture of James's investment in the impression as a term with a deep genealogy and complicated resonance, driving his fictional explorations of empiricism, aesthetics, and memory. * Daniel Hannah, The Review of English Studies * Henry James and the Art of Impressions offers clearer terms through which to see the impression, beyond a simple historical account of a ""keyword of the age""... Scholar shows us that, in James's use of the impression, we see a mind uniquely at work in the spaces between perception and reflection, imagination and reality, a mind on which very little was lost. * Jeffrey C. Kessler, Victorian Studies Vol 65.1 *"