When the family returned from Europe, the elder James decided to settle in New England. He chose Cambridge because this was the center of American intellectual thought. Many of the writers of Cambridge, Boston, and nearby Concord, where Emerson and Thoreau lived, were often visitors in the James household. It was in Boston that James met the first great influence on his literary career. He established a close friendship with William Dean Howells, who as editor of one of America's leading magazines, was able to help James in his early efforts to write and publish.
In Boston, Henry James enrolled briefly in the Harvard Law School but soon withdrew to devote himself to writing. His older brother, William James, the most famous philosopher and psychologist America had yet produced, was also a student at Harvard, where he remained after graduation to become one of the most eminent lecturers in America.
By the late 1860s, James had done some reviewing and had sold one work of fiction to the Atlantic Monthly. He also went to Europe on his own, to see the continent as an adult. He returned again to Cambridge and New York in the hope of continuing his literary career, but he gradually came to the realization that Europe was more suitable for his writings. Thus, in 1876, when he was in his thirty-third year, James made the momentous decision to take up residence abroad. With the exception of short trips to various parts of the world, he lived the rest of his life in and near London. Until 1915, he retained his American citizenship, but when World War I broke out, he became a naturalized citizen of England in protest over America's failure to enter the war against Germany.
