"The Figure in the Carpet" is a short story by American writer Henry James first published in 1896. It is told in the first person; the narrator, whose name is never revealed, meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention of all the author's works.
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.