The Beast in the Jungle is a 1903 novella by Henry James, first published as part of the collection, The Better Sort. Almost universally considered one of James' finest short narratives, this story treats appropriately universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and death.
Henry James OM was an American author, who became a British citizen in the last year of his life, regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language.