At Chalk Farm

The delightful, audacious and imaginative heroine of Henry James's novella In the Cage has come back to life in this enchanting sequel to one of The Master's minor classics. "Our young woman" (she is unnamed in the original) has moved beyond the telegraph cage at Cocker's grocery establishment, and is now established as "our young wife" in the promised house at Chalk Farm, a near-northern London suburb, part of Camden Town. Inspired by intensive re-reading of the original story, and...
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The delightful, audacious and imaginative heroine of Henry James's novella In the Cage has come back to life in this enchanting sequel to one of The Master's minor classics. "Our young woman" (she is unnamed in the original) has moved beyond the telegraph cage at Cocker's grocery establishment, and is now established as "our young wife" in the promised house at Chalk Farm, a near-northern London suburb, part of Camden Town. Inspired by intensive re-reading of the original story, and further inspired by a brilliant essay in the Henry James Review (Winter 2018) by Hilary Ball, titled "Blooming Girls and Bad Girls: 'In the Cage' and the Ha'penny Novel" this long short story relates the further adventures of the highly observant and canny young woman who represents one of the more interesting of James's "mere young things"-the girl who was on her way to becoming "the new woman" of the late 19th century-busy defying social class, traditional gender roles, marriage conventions and economics in order to find out who she is and what she will become in the new order.