Shades of Yellow: Henry James, The Awkward Age , and the Archival Horizons of the Yellow Book

Abstract: This essay proposes that the more productive periodical context in which to read The Awkward Age is not Harper’s Weekly , where it was first published, or the Atlantic Monthly , where James had initially thought to place it, but the Yellow Book . Expanding the archival horizons of the Yellow Book , the essay argues that by reading The Awkward Age alongside the Yellow Book we can better understand how the novel’s destabilization of temporal categories (time, age, generations, eras) is in conversation with the Yellow Book ’s distinctive representation of youth, age, the passage of time, and generational change.