‘What the World Says’: Henry James’ The Reverberator, Celebrity Journalism and Global Space

This essay examines the influence of late nineteenth-century transatlantic celebrity journalism on the conception of Henry James’ novel The Reverberator (1888). A relatively neglected work in James’ canon, The Reverberator is known for its satirical treatment of the ‘mania for publicity’, but the depth of its engagement in contemporary debates on the ‘New Journalism’ in Britain and equivalent journalistic practices in America has not been fully recognized. Inspired by two documented cases of transatlantic controversy generated by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, The Reverberator explores the mass mediation of cultural conflicts in an age of telecommunication and the incipient globalization of geographical space. The essay focuses in particular on James’ response to the furore surrounding Julian Hawthorne’s purported ‘interview’ with James Russell Lowell, published in October 1886: an example of the type of celebrity culture often associated with the New Journalism and inscribed in such textual forms as the interview, gossip column and cable news report.