Henry James

1843–1916 · American-born novelist & man of letters

Henry James was one of the major novelists of the English language, author of The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Turn of the Screw. Born in New York and long resident in England, he became a British subject in 1915, the year before his death. The kindness maxim survives not from his published prose but from a family anecdote — advice he gave his teenage nephew Billy in 1902, later recorded by his biographer Leon Edel.

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“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind”

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