Henry James was an American-born novelist and critic, later naturalised British, known for transatlantic fiction including The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl.
Henry James
What Maisie Knew
1897. Penguin Classics, 1988.
Shuttling between her divorced parents, Maisie is put in a hansom cab that 'passed under a pretty arch and drew up at a white house in a terrace from which the view, she thought, must be lovely', but 'the green expanse of the Regent's Park' is the only description.
The Wings of the Dove
1902. Penguin Classics, 1986.
Fabulously wealthy but stricken with a mysterious illness, Milly Theale resolves to live life to the full and 'take personal possession of what surrounded her', which translates in this instance as a walk through the park instead of being driven around it.
The real thing was to be quite away from the pompous roads, well within the centre and on the stretches of shabby grass. Here were benches and smutty sheep, here were idle lads at games of ball, with their cries mild in the thick air; here were wanderers anxious and tired like herself...
See the Nesbit entry for a description of the 'dusty and yellowish' appearance of the park at this time.
The Golden Bowl
1904. The World's Classics/OUP, 1991.
The Italian prince and his American wife live in Portland Place, from whence the princess and her father go out for a turn in the park.
Dropping into the first pair of sequestered chairs they came across
They wait a little, 'as if now at last she might bring out, as between them, something more specific'. Fat chance, as readers of the later novels will know.