The Ivory Tower was published posthumously in 1917. It is an unfinished novel by Henry James consisting of first three books completed and a "treatment" left behind which serves as a roadmap to the seven chapters that were to follow the already finished chapters. The book intended to attack the lasseiz-faire capitalism and the excessive wealth some people acquired. The first three chapters follow the story of Graham Fielder, who visits Frank Betterman, his dying uncle, and ends up receiving a huge inheritance on Betterman's death. The inheritance is so large that a baffled Graham, who doesn't know what to do with this new found fortune, appoints a manager, Horton Vint to help him with its management. From the transcripts and notes left behind, it can be perceived that James wanted Vint to betray Graham's trust and in the conclusion Fielder will forgive Vint for all that he has done. The book got widespread critical acclaim after its publication as people praised James for raising his voice against the filthy rich plutocrats of the Gilded Age. As his last book, The Ivory Tower reserves a special importance amongst all his other works.
Henry James OM was an American-born British author born in New York City on 15 April 1843. He is recognized as a crucial figure in the transition from literary realism to literary modernism. Henry James, Sr., an investor, and banker in Albany, was his father. Henry James was medically unfit in 1861 to fight in the American Civil War. For The Nation and Atlantic Monthly, he produced both fiction and nonfiction writing. Later, in 1878, Watch and Ward was published as a book. He left for Paris in 1875 and arrived in London in 1876. The Portrait of a Lady (1878), was released in 1881. He relocated to Sussex in 1897-1898, where he wrote The Turn of the Screw. He wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl between 1902 and 1904. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. His memoirs A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother were both published in 1913. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. He was cremated after passing away on February 28, 1916, in Chelsea, London.
