author
Theodora Bosanquet
1881–1961
Best remembered for her close work with Henry James, this sharp-eyed British writer and editor also built a notable career of her own in literary journalism and public life. Her memoir offers an unusually vivid view of a major novelist at work.
1 Audiobook
Henry James at Work
by Theodora Bosanquet
About the author
Born on the Isle of Wight in 1880, Theodora Bosanquet worked as a writer, reviewer, editor, and secretary. She is most often associated with Henry James, whose amanuensis and secretary she was from 1907 until his death in 1916, a role that placed her at the center of his working life.
Bosanquet later turned that experience into Henry James at Work (1924), a memoir published by the Hogarth Press of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. The book remains the work for which she is best known, valued for its lively, first-hand picture of James's habits, methods, and personality.
Her career reached well beyond literary reminiscence. She served as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women and went on to contribute to Time and Tide, where she later became its literary editor and a director. She died in 1961.