When the last of the English Pendrels dies and leaves a London estate house to American Ralph
Pendrel, the young Pendrel travels to England and finds himself inhabiting the body of an
even earlier Pendrel. Unfortunately, when Henry James himself died, that’s as far as he’d
gotten in writing the book, although the posthumous publication included James’s notes on
the conclusion—plenty enough to inspire a litany of followers from countless versions of
Berkeley Square to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Out of Time.”
— Michael Main
He clung to his gravity, which somehow steadied him—so odd it was that the sense of her
understanding wouldn’t be abated, which even a particular lapse, he could
see
. . .
1 English variant