The past decades have seen enormous efforts in China to study Henry James,s corpus , which reflects a persistent enthusiasm on this literary figure among scholars in the field of foreign literature studies .This paper looks back at studies on Henry James in different historical periods , in China and attempts to uncover the interaction between the reception of foreign classics and China,s historical background .From a heavy reliance on the″traveling theories″ in the 1980s to a selective use of Western paradigms later on ,critics of Henry James in China consistently show a general interest in his major novels and his novel theory . This paper is an historical review of studies on Henry James, works in China from the middle of twentieth century up to the present .Both the phase features of these studies and the factors which influence the formation of these features ,in particular cultural background ,are addressed in this research .Firstly ,form 1934 to 1945 ,Henry James,s works had been introduced into the literacy criticism in China by translators ,but the research at that time was constrained by the historical conditions .Secondly ,from 1949 to the 1970s ,there was very little study done regarding Henry ames .It was not until 1980,s that scholars has begun to discuss Henry James,s works from various perspectives .Henry James was originally regarded as a bourgeois writer who idealized the ruling class and neglected the working class .Influenced by the reflection on the political thinking in literature studies during the Cultural Revolution and the nation-wide revival of humanism in culture ,Henry James was interpreted as a humanistic writer who had fully explored human consciousness .However ,the aestheticism both in his novel theory and his late works was largely absent during that period .Finally ,from the 1990s onward ,Henry James has been interpreted according to various critical traditions ,such as the formalist tradition and the deconstructive tradition .