I'm ambivalent on his actual sexual interest in men. Wikipedia concludes that direct evidence is nonexistent. "In private correspondence" doesn't somehow force the baring of his true soul. And the article notes his propensity to burn manuscripts and letters - so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.

Yes, obviously his family wanted to prevent scandal. But that'd be true whether or not the scandal had any basis in fact.

> And the article notes his propensity to burn manuscripts and letters - so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.

People obviously received the letters, and may have kept them whether James retained copies of them or not.

> so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.

Another explanation would be that he didn't consider it a character flaw.

What labels would work to describe his sexuality, do you think?

I suppose that resisting the application of a modern label could be read as a kind of erasure of gay/bi people from history. That's why in an edit I added the qualification that it would be equally anachronistic to call him 'straight'.

> I don't see the need for a label as those are primarily used by living people to self-identify.

Are they...? Labels are used by... everyone... straight or not. And I can assure you I wasn't the first one to apply certain labels to myself as a child...

And yeah I mean people obviously use labels as part of homophobic abuse, but that’s not going to be helpful as part of an argument that such labels are useful or valuable. I don’t really see why it’s necessary to decide whether Henry James is straight bi or gay just because those are the major classifications in our present social context.