ABSTRACT
Henry James's essay 'The art of fiction' is an ambiguous but crucial statement of many of the principles that underpinned his work throughout his career as a writer. This chapter focuses on James's essay, an important statement of the ideas about fiction he had been developing since his early days as a literary critic. It compares his views with those expressed in Walter Besant's lecture and looks at a response to James's essay by the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. In 'The art of fiction' James stresses the importance of 'evidence' to both novelist and historian. 'The art of fiction' is pre-eminently a defence of fiction against the restrictive concepts that in James's view dominated criticism of the English novel. 'The art of fiction' provoked some interesting responses amongst British writers, and James's thought has exerted a long-term influence on the development of criticism in general.
