What one reviewer said about The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories (Unabridged):
I have never read Henry James before because I have always been told that he is not worth reading. My own teachers have told me that, but they obviously didn't read like I do because I found this story nothing but delightful. Henry James faintly resembles the writing of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. I see the resemblance in James' use of detail, not only in physical descriptions but also in the portrayals of capturing what is happening in the minds of his characters. This can be tedious if a reader is looking for plot, but my own conviction is that good fiction is driven by character, and anything that happens within a plot happens consequently to how characters act and/or think. "The Beast in the Jungle" revolves around only two characters and how their relationship and convictions affect each other's lives. The beauty in this story is the reality within it-a realization of time and how and what it should be spent on. James focuses on human relationships and shows the flaws that can occur within those relationships. John Marcher's selfishness, for instance, keeps him at a distance from May Bartram and her love for him: "Marcher had been visited by one of his occasional warnings against egotism. He had kept up, he felt . . . his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish". This selfishness, which Marcher believes he suppresses fairly well, is what turns out to be part of the Beast he is seeking; the selfishness is what keeps him from loving Mary Bartram simply because he wants her only for what she can do for him: ". . . he had never felt before, the growth of a dread of losing her by some catastrophe . . . that yet wouldn't at all be the catastrophe: partly because she had almost of a sudden begun to strike him as more useful to him than ever yet". I enjoyed "The Beast in the Jungle" so much because it took me into the mind of a person who grows throughout the story and learns something that perhaps every human being needs to learn throughout the course of his/her life. I don't find Henry James tiresome or dull at all; in fact, to myself of course, his writing is quite the contrary. I look forward to reading more of him.
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