1 h 37 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the life you never lived waits for you in an empty house?
Spencer Brydon returns to New York after thirty-three years in Europe to look after his property. The city feels strange, and his old family house draws him back. Walking its rooms, he begins to wonder who he might have become if he had stayed. Soon, that question carries more than the ache of regret.
His old friend Alice Staverton listens with care and understands him better than he understands himself. But Brydon keeps returning to the house, moving through long halls and pausing at doors. Henry James stays close to his restless thoughts, making a flickering candle and an empty room the setting for a haunting that turns inward.
What you’ll discover
- A stranger at home Follow Brydon through familiar rooms that make his years away feel newly unsettling.
- The man who stayed Explore the disturbing possibility that an unlived life can take on a presence.
- An old friend's care Meet Alice Staverton, whose quiet understanding brings tenderness to Brydon's strange and troubling search.
- Dread behind each door Walk the stairs and halls as curiosity gives way to the feeling of being hunted.
- Choices that close doors Sit with a hard question about regret, identity, and the paths a life leaves behind.
Who will love it
For readers who love ghost stories with a thoughtful center, and for anyone who has wondered about a different path in life.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Spencer Brydon comes home a stranger
- Alice Staverton sees him clearly
- The empty house starts to call him
- Brydon hunts, and is hunted
- What the story says about regret and choice
- How James tells the tale
Who’s who
- Spencer BrydonA fifty-six-year-old American who has lived in Europe for decades and returns to New York, curious about the man he might have become.
- Alice StavertonBrydon's old friend, living quietly in New York, who understands him well and listens to his strange ideas with care.
- Mrs. MuldoonThe caretaker of the empty family house, who looks after it and watches Brydon's night visits with growing wonder.
- The other Spencer BrydonThe life Brydon did not lead, imagined as a figure who stayed in New York and who seems to haunt the old house.
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- Audiobook
- 1 h 37 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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La esquina alegre
by Henry James · 1908
Spencer Brydon hunts a presence in his empty New York house, testing his nerve and his sense of who he is.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Spencer Brydon comes home a stranger
Spencer Brydon is fifty-six years old. He has lived in Europe for thirty-three years, and now he returns to New York to look after some property he owns. He has not seen the city in all that time, and he finds it loud, tall and strange. Buildings he remembers have vanished, and new ones rise where they stood.
Brydon has two properties. One is a house that has been divided into rental flats, and he watches its repairs with a curiosity that surprises him. The other is the house where he was born and grew up. It stands on a street corner, and he and his family once called it the jolly corner. It is nearly empty now, kept by a caretaker couple, the Muldoons.
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What is The Jolly Corner about?
It is about Spencer Brydon, who returns to New York after living abroad for decades. In his old family house he becomes haunted by the idea of the man he might have been if he had stayed.
Who is Alice Staverton in The Jolly Corner?
Alice is Brydon's old friend who stayed in New York. She is patient and perceptive, and she understands his thoughts about his other self better than he does.
What does the jolly corner mean?
It is the family's name for the street corner where the old house stands, and so for the house itself. It carries Brydon's childhood memories and becomes the place where his past and his imagined life meet.
The author
Henry James
1843–1916 · American British novelist
Henry James was born in New York City in 1843. He settled in England in 1876 and became a British citizen in 1915. He wrote novels, stories, plays, and travel books. His works include Daisy Miller (1878), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and The Ambassadors (1903). He died in London in 1916.
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