L'envers de l'histoire contemporaine and James's Historic Page

Assessing the complicated relationship that Henry James had with Balzac, particularly with his presentation of history as primarily one of sordid struggles over the secret histories of money and sexual misconduct in post-Restoration France, this essay seeks to make visible James's own formulation of what constitutes the actual historic page. I contend that James fashioned much of his own writing around precisely what was blatantly present in Balzac, by allowing the Balzacian page of the underside of contemporary history to remain unwritten, evident only as a delicate architecture of avoidance that nevertheless speaks volumes.