Alice James
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Alice James (August 7, 1848 – March 6, 1892), U.S. diarist, only daughter of Henry James, Sr. and sister of philosopher William James and novelist Henry James, is known primarily for the posthumously published diary she kept in the last years of her life.
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[edit] Life
Born into the wealthy and intellectually active James family, Alice quickly developed a complex of psychological and physical problems that eventually ended her life at age 43. The youngest of five children, she lived with her parents until their deaths in 1882. By this time Alice had suffered at least two major breakdowns, and she would experience several more before her death from breast cancer.
She sought various treatments for her disorders but never found significant relief. In 1884 she settled in England with her companion, Katharine Loring, where she remained until her death.
[edit] The diary
Alice began to keep her diary in 1889. It contained many witty, acerbic, insightful comments on English life and manners, along with excerpts from various publications to support her opinions. The diary was not published for many years after her death due to the sharp comments on various persons that Alice criticized by name.
Eventually a badly edited version was released in 1934. Leon Edel published a fuller edition in 1964. The diary has made Alice something of a feminist icon, as she was seen as struggling through her illnesses to find her own voice. On the other hand, this view of the diary's significance has been criticized as a facile and inaccurate tale of victimization.
[edit] References
Jean Strouse published the standard biography — Alice James: a Biography — in 1980. Strouse steered something of a middle course between Alice-as-icon and Alice-as-victim. Ruth Bernard Yeazell published Alice's correspondence in The Death and Letters of Alice James (1981). Susan Sontag wrote a play about Alice James, Alice in Bed (1993), which seems to waver between sympathy and impatience with its subject.
