Jamesian

Or James·e·an

[jeym-zee-uhn]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the novelist Henry James or his writings.

2. of, relating to, or characteristic of William James or his philosophy.

noun

1. a student or follower of Henry James or William James.

Jamesian

/ ˈdʒeɪmzɪən /

adjective

1. relating to or characteristic of Henry James or his brother, William James

Word History and Origins

Origin of Jamesian¹

First recorded in 1870–75; James + -ian

Example Sentences

Osgood’s Colonial-era English is elegantly braided with his crazed enthusiasm for apples, while the sisters’ story is thick with Jamesian dread.

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Lovecraft, Paul Theroux and Stephen King, was so influential that his work has given rise to multiple theories of what constitutes a “Jamesian” ghost story.

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Rosemary Pardoe, founder of the journal Ghosts and Scholars, once compiled a list of various stories composed in the Jamesian manner.

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No crude explanation of the decisions he made can do justice to the multiple loyalties he felt, or the almost Jamesian way he thought about and ultimately resolved them.

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It’s a flawed book in some ways, but it’s also a social novel that captures a very romanticized period, almost in a Henry Jamesian way, in Greenwich Village.

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