This Library of America volume (the third of five volumes devoted to his short fiction) includes among its seventeen stories some of James’s greatest masterpieces.“The Aspern Papers” is a stunning novella about emotional ruthlessness in the service of literary scholarship. “The Pupil” is a densely suggestive account of the moral perplexities underlying the relationship between an impoverished tutor and a young invalid. “The Lesson of the Master” is an intricate study of ambition, disappointment, and the demands of a life devoted to art. “Brooksmith” is a moving portrait of a house servant and “Sir Edmund Orme” is an enthralling ghost story.In “The Liar,” a painter attempts to force a former love to admit that her present husband is a pathological liar; in “The Patagonia,” a young man cavalierly flirts with a young woman en route to her wedding in England, with disastrous consequences.More than half the stories within this volume are available in no other edition.

    Based on wu-wei, taking no unnatural action, it would make individual existence like the flow of water with no obstacles to impede. Famed Sinologist here offers standard English version of major Taoist writings.