It’s the birthday of Henry James(1843-1916), the great American novelist and expat who explored international themes of the Old World vs. the New in novels such as Daisy Miller (1878) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and who also wrote one of the creepiest ghost stories ever written, The Turn of the Screw (1898).

James was born in New York City, younger brother to the philosopher William James, and the James brothers were whisked off to Europe even as infants in a sort of foreshadowing as to how James would live his life. They grew up in Manhattan but returned to the capitals of Europe in their teen years, and in 1876 James settled in London; by then he’d already written his first couple of novels. Basically he threw himself into becoming one of the greatest and most influential writers the U.S. has ever produced. He wrote 20 novels and a host of tales, plays, and books of travel and criticism, and his career was so illustrious that it has been divided into Early, Middle, and Late. (This only happens if you’re truly distinguished. I’m sorry, but nobody is comparing Early Barbara Cartland with Late Barbara Cartland.)

James was also quite the social butterfly (though he never married), and throughout his life was making friends with other important writers, from Gustave Flaubert to Robert Louis Stevenson. In fact, going to Europe and meeting James seems to have been the pastime of many important writers from the period, and if I had a dime for every time I’ve read that this or that great writer—Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, W. Somerset Maugham—became friends with the great Henry James, I’d have a good 80 or 90 cents to my name. At least.

Too much to say about James, so I’ll just say this: one of his later novels, The Wings of the Dove (1902), tells the story of two poor Londoners in love who conspire to take advantage of a young, beautiful, rich, and conveniently terminally ill American woman. The man is to marry the American, inherit her money when she dies, and then marry his true love, who can then live with him off the American’s money. Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of angst and things don’t work out for anyone. The novel has been called one of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th century and has captured the imagination of a zillion critics, playwrights, and film makers.

James retired to Rye, Sussex, where he did some of his best writing (including Wings), but visited the U.S. in 1904. He was not at all impressed with the materialism he witnessed. He returned to England, published The American Scene (1907) and a couple autobiographies, and threw himself into the British war effort in 1914. He became a citizen and received the Order of Merit in 1916, the year that he died.

Have a smashing Monday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.