Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPraise for earlier volumes in The Complete Letters of Henry James series:
“This edition is not just notable for its astonishing ambition, however; even at this early stage, it must also be reckoned a signal achievement. By every measure, the volumes we have so far are simply outstanding in every major respect. The books are physically beautiful inside and out; Walker and Zacharias have edited the letters to within an inch of their lives. . . . The result is an embarrassment of critical and biographical riches.”—Bruce Bawer,
New Criterion “The letters collected in these elegant three volumes, edited by Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias, cover the period in which Henry James became Henry James. . . . [An] extraordinary job of editing. . . . Both the footnotes and the biographical register at the back of each volume are at once succinct and full. They allow any reader to place and know the people in this busy social world.”—Michael Gorra,
Times Literary Supplement
“Rippling through these letters are the first imaginative stirrings of one of the greatest fiction and travel writers in the language. [James] was also one of the most entertaining—and prolific—correspondents. . . . These are richly enthralling letters.”—Peter Kemp,
Sunday Times (London)
“The textual editing of the letters is fantastically thorough, every blot, deletion, insertion, and misspelling being lucidly presented in the text itself and further described in endnotes to each letter; for the reader this evokes the dash and spontaneity of James’s pen, and for the scholar it clarifies every possible ambiguity caused by that dash. . . . The letters themselves are so vivid, funny, and revealing that [the edition] is already indispensable.”—Alan Hollinghurst,
Guardian “The general public has been deprived of James’s full epistolary record until now. . . . All the more reason to celebrate the present volumes, handsomely produced and extensively and intelligently annotated.”—Peter Brooks,
Bookforum “Like earlier releases in the ambitious Complete Letters of Henry James series, this richly rewarding compilation is well annotated and scrupulously edited.”—J. J. Benardete,
Choice “For a snapshot of nineteenth-century Europe—and a sampling of a great novelist’s young mind—there is perhaps nothing better than the latest, meticulously edited volume of The Complete Letters of Henry James [series].”—Alexander Theroux,
Wall Street Journal “The volumes are beautiful, solidly put together, with big type, wide margins, and copious annotations.”—Edmund V. White,
New York Review of Books “These extraordinary, profoundly welcome volumes are the first fruits of an epic undertaking by two heroic American scholars, Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias. . . . These early volumes give a wonderfully pleasurable picture of a writer at the beginning of his journey, enduring setbacks and barren spells, but already showing the impressive resilience, wisdom, and wit that were the foundations of his astonishing career.”—Philip Horne,
Daily TelegraphTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Symbols and Abbreviations
Chronology
Errata
1879
September 2 To Delano Alexander Goddard
September 14 To Mary Walsh James
September 14 To Alexander Macmillan
September 14 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
[September 15-22] To Isabella Stewart Gardner
September 18 To Josiah Holland
September 27 To Chatto & Windus
September 28 To Alexander Macmillan
[early October] To Frances Rollins Morse
October 5 To Chatto & Windus
October 11 To Henry James Sr.
October 13 To Chatto & Windus
October 17 To Grace Norton
October 19 To Alexander Macmillan
October 21 To Alexander Macmillan
October 31 To William Dean Howells
October 31 To Henry James Sr.
November 2 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
November 6 To Henrietta Heathorn Huxley
November 10 To William James
November 18 To Mary Walsh James
[November 19] To Julia C. Coster Reubell
November 20 To Elizabeth Boott
November 26 To Richard Watson Gilder
December 7 To Elizabeth Boott
December 15 To Theodore Child
December 15 To Richard von Hoffmann
December 16 To Henry James Sr.
December 16 To William James
December 19 To Sarah Butler Wister
December 20 or 27, 1879, or January 3, 10, 17, 24, or 31, 1880 To Helena de Kay Gilder
December 21 To John S. Barron
December 21 To Grace Norton
December 22 To Frances Rollins Morse
December 31 To Elizabeth Boott
1880
January 3 To William Dean Howells
January 5 To Alice James
January 5 To James Ripley Osgood
January 8 To George Abbot James
January 11 To Henry James Sr.
January 11 To Robertson James
January 13 To Louisa Lawrence
January 17 To Henry James Sr.
January 17 To Grace Norton
January 17 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
January 19 To John S. Barron
January 22 To William Jones Hoppin
January 22 To Henrietta Heathorn Huxley
January 29 To Isabella Stewart Gardner
January 31 To Richard von Hoffmann
January 31 To William Dean Howells
February 2 To Mary Walsh James
February 3 To Helena de Kay Gilder
February 4 To Theodore E. Child
February 6 To Theodore E. Child
February 7 To Anthony John Mundella and Mary Smith Mundella
February 9 To Joseph Hatton
February 11 To Henrietta Heathorn Huxley
February 15 To Henry James Sr.
February 16 To Gertrude Barbara Rich Collier Tennant
February 17 To Theodore E. Child
February 22 To Elizabeth Boott
February 22 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
February 22 To John Russell Young
February 26 To Chatto & Windus
March 3 To William Jones Hoppin
March 9 To Jane Octavia Brookfield
March 9 To Mary Walsh James
[late March-early May] To Linda White Mazini Villari
March 30 To Henry James Sr.
March 31 To Charles Eliot Norton
April 9 To Grace Norton
April 11 To Fanny Hertz
April 16 To Sarah Butler Wister
April 18 To George Grove
April 18 To William Dean Howells
April 18 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
April 22 To Scribner’s Monthly
April 25 To Alice James
May 3 To Catharine Walsh
May 9 To William James
May 14 To John Walter Cross
May 14 To Henry James Sr.
Supplement
Introduction
July 26 [1868] To Ticknor & Fields
July 29 [1876] To Richard Watson Gilder
May 22 [1878] To William Jones Hoppin
July 19 [1879] To Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis
Biographical Register
Genealogies
General Editors’ Note
Works Cited
Index
