“The Real Thing” is a short story by Henry James, first syndicated by S. S. McClure in multiple American newspapers and then published in the British publication Black and White in April 1892 and the following year as the title story in the collection, The Real Thing and Other Stories published by Macmillan.
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.