The Jolly Corner

The Jolly Corner, Henry James crafts a haunting psychological tale about identity, memory, and the lives we might have lived. Spencer Brydon returns to New York after many years abroad, only to confront a disturbing presence in his childhood home—an embodiment of the self he could have become had he never left. Blending ghost story elements with deep psychological insight, James explores the tension between choice and fate, past and present. Subtle, unsettling, and profoundly introspective, The Jolly Corner stands as one of James's most powerful meditations on the divided self.