An "Entirely Personal Success": Intertextuality and Self-Reflexive Ironies in Henry James's "Pandora"

Henry James’s “Pandora” has been read as a rewriting of his former treatment of the “American Girl abroad” in the comic mode. The self-allusive hints at “a Tauchnitz novel by an American author” (90) establish an ironic reversal of the failures of understanding which had led to tragedy in “Daisy Miller.” In this framework, well-known Jamesian topoi appear both as a self-parody and a metaliterary dialogue James engages with his readers and critics. The author’s personal implication in this “American” story is further testified by his Notebooks, in which he states his intention to write about his friends Henry and “Clover” Adams. Thus, “Pandora”’s multi-layered intertextuality also includes undeclared references to Adams’s anonymously published novel, Democracy, a semi-satirical account of U.S. political life. This article focuses on the web of intertextual relations woven in this short story with a view to reflecting on James’s ideas concerning the politics of authorship, readership, and literary success.