Henry James was pre-eminently a critic of the novel. There was a lot of systematic criticism of poetry before him, but practically no systematic criticism of the novel was there before him. He was himself a great novelist, and therefore he knew what problems normally come before a novelist, and how to overcome them. Therefore he stands out as the first great critic of the art of novel writing. His criticism is contained in a series of eighteen prefaces and a large number of his note-books. They were all collected in a book-form under the title The Art of the Novel published in 1934. His object in his criticism was ambitious and clear; it was to create from nothing an English tradition in the criticism of the novel. No such systematic criticism of the art of novel existed before it.
James's criticism falls into three stages. In the first stage almost all his criticism is about contemporary authors, English, American and French. Secondly, there is the magnificent central phase that open with a manifesto-like the Art of Fiction. Thirdly, there are the prefaces of 1907- a, composed in a single confined period of preparation for the collected edition of his works. They are nearly a total statement of his views on the novel. James holds that without a properly connected and artistically developed form, the novels are merely 'fluid puddings'. Life, for Emerson, is not just an untidy system, it is a moral imperative. James's heroes make their bid for life and meet defeat at the end, and yet they are justified in their attempt. James developed the technique we now call 'the central intelligence'. The extent of revolution that James brought in the criticism of the novel is difficult to overstate.
