EVENT DETAILS -
Your Map to Washington Square 
Kickoff Event
Washington Square: A Novel of New York
Wednesday, April 1 at 4pm
Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House
Join us and our panel of scholars to discuss Washington Square, a novel suffused with New York City in both title and text, its author, and the city that inspired it. Participants include Chair, Susan M. Griffin, University of Louisville and Editor of The Henry James Review; Rita Charon, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; Eric Haralson, SUNY Stony Brook; and Lee Clark Mitchell, Princeton University.
Free. Open to the public
For questions, please call (212) 998-8850
WASHINGTON SQUARE ON STAGE
Join us for a reading of The Heiress, a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz suggested by Washington Square
by the Metropolitan Playhouse
Thursday, April 2 at 2pm
The Caring Community
The Heiress premiered on September 29, 1947 at the Biltmore Theatre in New York and played for 420 performances, featuring Basil Rathbone as Dr. Sloper. The play was revived on Broadway in 1956 and 1978, and by Lincoln Center in 1995, winning four Tony Awards that year, including Best Revival of a Play and Best Actress for Cherry Jones.
The Metropolitan Playhouse specializes in reviving and creating plays inspired by American literature and history. Through events such as theater festivals celebrating Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe, the company has revitalized and re-examined many forgotten gems in the plays and literature of America’s past. Metropolitan stages both old and new works for the modern stage to get to the heart of their lasting impact. They have worked with The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction to conceive a site-specific version of the play, to be adapted for performance in several locations for a variety of audiences.
For questions on the April 2 reading, please call (212) 780-5313 or visit www.thecaringcommunity.org
HENRY JAMES & FILM
Joint Screening of The Heiress (1949) and Washington Square (1997)
with Commentary by Susan M. Griffin, University of Louisville, author of the study Henry James Goes to the Movies and editor of the Henry James Review.
Friday, April 3 at 6pm
NYU Cantor Film Center
The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949) stars Olivia Havilland, whose portrayal of Catherine Sloper won an Oscar for Best Actress. The acclaimed film was nominated for a total of eight Oscars, and features Montgomery Clift as Morris Townsend, and Ralph Richardson as Dr. Austin Sloper. Washington Square (Agnieszka Holland, 1997) features an all-star cast of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin, and Maggie Smith.
Sponsored by NYU, Maurie Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, Tisch School of the Arts, The Directors Series
Free. Open to the public
For more information, please visit
WASHINGTON SQUARE ON STAGE
Join us for a reading of The Heiress, a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz suggested by Washington Square
by The Metropolitan Playhouse
Saturday, April 4 at 8pm
NYU University Hall commons, 110 E 14th St. between 4th and 3rd Aves.
Performance to be followed by discussion with NYU Professors. See Thursday, April 2 for details on The Heiress.
Walking Tour
Henry James’s New York
Sunday, April 5 at 1:30pm
Join New York City history buff and walking tour guide Joyce Gold as she explores the New York of Henry James and other literary notables. The tour will visit locations in and around Washington Square.
These events are cosponsored by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Participation is limited. Please RSVP at (212) 475-9585 (ext. 35) or rsvp@gvshp.org
$10. Meeting place disclosed upon registration
Reading Group—Come to Talk or Just to Listen
Monday, April 6 at 2pm
The Caring Community
Led by James Kraft
Join the Merc’s go-to expert on all things Henry James in a discussion on Washington Square. James Kraft has taught popular classes on the works of Henry James at the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction since 1998, including Henry James and Edith Wharton, Henry James: The Early Years, Henry James: The Middle Years I and II, and Henry James: The Golden Bowl, a seminar on James’s late works. He has taught at the University of Virginia, Universite Laval, and Wesleyan University. He has written a critical study of the early tales of Henry James, and has published many articles on American literature in literary journals.
Free. Open to the public
For questions, please call (212) 780-5313 or visit www.thecaringcommunity.org
Participants are urged to read the novel before the session.
Reading Group—Come to Talk or Just to Listen
Monday, April 6 at 6pm
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction
Led by Brenda Wegener and Kristin Henley
Head Librarian, Brenda Wegener, and Programs Manager, Kristin Henley, of the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction will lead a discussion group on Washington Square. Get the inside scoop from the reader’s point of view on this classic novel.
Brenda Wegener has been a librarian in literature and art for the past twenty years. She has a Master’s Degree in Library Science from USC and a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature from the University of California, San Diego.
Kristin Henley received her MFA in writing from Columbia University in 2007 and her poetry has been published in several journals including NYU’s literary journal Washington Square!
Free. RSVP to 212-755-6710 or info@mercantilelibrary.org
I Hate Henry James:
with Kevin Baker, Stefan Merrill Block, Caitlin Macy and Darin Strauss
April 7th at 7pm
Barnes & Noble, Tribeca
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Okay we don’t actually hate Henry James. But he can be a little stuffy, a little long-winded and sometimes just frustrating. (Though he is none of these in Washington Square. We swear.) Join us at Barnes & Noble for an evening with contemporary authors Kevin Baker, Stefan Merrill Block, Caitlin Macy and Darin Strauss as they take a stand pro or con on the man English novelist Graham Green called the novel’s Shakespeare.
Kevin Baker is the author of Striver’s Row, Dreamland, and Paradise Alley, his trilogy set in New York City.
Stefan Merrill Block’s first novel The Story of Forgetting was an international bestseller in 2008, out in paperback on April 7th.
Caitlin Macy is the author of The Fundamentals of Play and Spoiled. A graduate of Yale, she received her MFA from Columbia. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Slate, among other publications.
Darin Strauss received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006 and is the author of the New York Times Notable Book Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy.
Reading Group—Come to Talk or Just to Listen
Tuesday, April 14 at 6:30pm
The Neighborhood Preservation Center
Led by James Kraft
See Monday April 6, 2pm listing for more information on James Kraft
Sponsored by Neighborhood Preservation Center and The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Free, Limited to 30 people. RSVP to (212) 228-2781 or email: info@neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org
Participants are urged to read the novel before the session
The Master and Washington Square –
A Discussion with Colm Tóibín
Wednesday, April 15 at 7pm
Barnes & Noble, Union Square
Colm Tóibín is a multi-award-winning Irish novelist and critic. Mr. Tóibín’s fifth novel, The Master (2004) a fictional account of Henry James's late years, was shortlisted for the 2004 Booker Prize and was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year Award. In The New Yorker, John Updike wrote, “Tóibín’s subject is the inward James, the master of literary creation and a vast hushed arena of dreams and memories and hoarded observations.”
HENRY JAMES & FILM Screening of Daisy Miller (Peter Bogdanovich, 1974) Wednesday, April 15 at 4:30, 6:50 and 9:30pm Brooklyn Academy of Music
Come watch Daisy Miller and stay for a discussion by James scholars Rita Charon and Maura Spiegel, Columbia University Departments of Medicine and English. Note that the discussion is only following the 6:50 showing of the film. Daisy Miller (Peter Bogdanovich, 1974) stars a young Cybil Shepard in an iconic role as James’s flirtatious heroine.
Directions and Tickets:
BAM.org
$11
HENRY JAMES & FILM Screening of The Heiress (1949) Tuesday, April 21 at 7pm The Merchant’s House Museum
See the inspiration for The Heiress! Videographer Anthony Bellov will use comparative images to demonstrate how the movie’s set designers used the Merchant’s House as their model for the set of the film. The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949) stars Olivia Havilland, whose portrayal of Catherine Sloper won an Oscar for Best Actress. The acclaimed film was nominated for a total of eight Oscars, and features Montgomery Clift as Morris Townsend, and Ralph Richardson as Dr. Austin Sloper.
$10, RSVP to (212)-777-1089
Reading Group—Come to Talk or Just to Listen
Wednesday, April 22 at 6:30pm
The New York Society Library
Led by James Kraft
See Monday April 6, 2pm listing for more information on James Kraft
Space is limited. Please register online at
$10 in advance; $15 at door
Participants are urged to read the novel before the session
WASHINGTON SQUARE ON STAGE
Join us for a reading of The Heiress, a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz suggested by Washington Square
by The Metropolitan Playhouse
Saturday, April 25 at 2pm
The New York Society Library
See Thursday, April 2 for details on The Heiress.
Space is limited. Please register online at
www.nysoclib.org/events_registration.html or at (212) 288-6900 (ext. 230)
A Walking Tour
Henry James’s New York
Sunday, April 26 at 1:30pm
See April 5th listing for details.
Reading Group—Come to Talk or Just to Listen
Monday, April 27 at 7:30pm
Barnes & Noble, Greenwich Village
Led by Jennie A. Kassanoff
Join Jamesian and scholar, Jennie A. Kassanoff, for a special evening on Washington Square. Selected by Barnes & Noble Classics to write the introduction for their edition of the book, Kassanoff will speak on the book and lead participants on a discussion about the complexities of this novella.
Jennie A. Kassanoff is Assistant Professor of English at Barnard College, where she teaches late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American literature. She has received grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Gilder Lehrman Insititue and the Rotary Foundation, and is the author of Edith Wharton and the Politics of Race.
A Reading of Selections from Washington Square by contemporary author and Henry James fan, John Berendt
Followed by a reception
Wednesday, April 29 at 7pm
Merchant’s House Museum
John Berendt is the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994) and The City of Falling Angels (2005).
$15. Space is limited, please call (212) 777-1089 or email: nyc1832@merchantshouse.org to RSVP.
Cynthia Ozick and Michael Cunningham in Conversation
Thursday, April 30 at 6:30pm
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction
Acclaimed authors and Jamesians, Cynthia Ozick and Michael Cunningham, will discuss Washington Square, Henry James, and his enduring influence on American writers.
Cynthia Ozick is the author of numerous acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Man Booker International prize. Her stories have won four O. Henry first prizes, and Ozick was recently awarded the 2008 Pen/Nabokov Award and the 2008 Pen/Malamud Award. She lives in New York.
Michael Cunningham is the author of the bestselling novel The Hours, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, A Home at the End of the World, also adapted for the screen, Specimen Days, and Flesh and Blood. He lives in New York.
For more information
call (212) 755-6710 or email info@mercantilelibrary.org
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The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. The program is designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of its citizens. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.
For more information on The Big Read, click here: www.neabigread.org
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