Henry James (1843-1916) was an American- British writer and literary critic. 'The Beast in the Jungle' period of his work was marked with the use of exquisite narrative style, consisting in long winding sentences imitating the flow of spoken language, yet pursuing a single purpose and moving according to the chosen motif. The book includes two short stories: 'The Beast in the Jungle' and 'The Figure in the Carpet.' Both of them feature characters obsessed with an idea. One is waiting for a horrible catastrophe to tramp on his life, and the other is desperate to reveal the secret, hidden between the lines of several novels and in the thoughts of his friends.