| Sumario: | This essay examines the influence of late nineteenth-century transatlantic celebrity journalism on the conception of Henry James’ novelThe Reverberator(1888). A relatively neglected work in James’ canon,The Reverberatoris known for its satirical treatment of the ‘mania for publicity’, but the depth of its engagement in contemporary debates on the ‘New Journalism’ in Britain and equivalent journalistic practices in America has not been fully recognized. Inspired by two documented cases of transatlantic controversy generated by Joseph Pulitzer’sNew York World,The Reverberatorexplores the mass mediation of cultural conflicts in an age of telecommunication and the incipient globalization of geographical space. The essay focuses in particular on James’ response to the furore surrounding Julian Hawthorne’s purported ‘interview’ with James Russell Lowell, published in October 1886: an example of the type of celebrity culture often associated with the New Journalism and inscribed in such textual forms as the interview, gossip column and cable news report.
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