The author considers James's work from The Bostonians to The Awkward Age - from 1883 to 1889 - a period in which James was resident in London and searching for material to replace the "international theme." Jacobson considers this context in relation to the emergence of a mass market and sees James's major fiction of this period as an attempt to exploit the conventions of popular fiction in an analysis of his society's assumptions. James's work at this time must also be viewed as an artist's effort to secure popular attention and acceptance.

Such an approach allows Jacobson to treat James's "French period" and his "experimental period" as a unit and to counter the myth that James was an ivory tower artist.