The lasting influence on the master's work of two independent, fiercely intelligent women. Henry James's cousin, Minny Temple, was the "heroine" of his youth in New England; he saw her as a free spirit, "a plant of pure American growth." The writer Constance Fenimore Woolson was a friend of his middle years in Europe, a solitary, mature woman who pursued her ambitions with an intensity that matched his own. Both had an extraordinary impact on James, even (perhaps especially) in the wakes of their premature deaths. In this beautifully written and eye-opening biography, Lyndall Gordon gives us a remarkable portrait of two strongly individual women, both ahead of their time, and their creative intimacy with Henry James: "ties more intimate than sex, closer than those of family and friends." Through these women we see some of the most protected aspects of the man more clearly. As Gordon writes, "James invented himself, but he could not have written as he did without partners-female partners, posthumous partners-in that unseen space in which life is transformed into art." Read Less