Description
Book SynopsisRecipient of the Approved Edition seal from the Modern Language Association's Committee on Scholarly Editions This volume of The Complete Letters of Henry James, 18841886 includes 179 letters, 94 published for the first time, written between November 11, 1884, and December 21, 1885. The letters mark Henry James's ongoing efforts to care for his sister, develop his work, strengthen his professional status, build friendships old and new, and maximize his income. James details work on midcareer novels The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima as well as on tales that would help to define his career. He reveals his close acquaintance with British politics and politicians. This volume opens with Alice James's arrival in England and concludes with Henry James's plans to leave his flat in Piccadilly for his new address in De Vere Gardens, Kensington.
Trade ReviewPraise for earlier volumes in The Complete Letters of Henry James series
“Reading [these] edited letters is a delight. The transcriptions allow one to read fluidly rather than haltingly, preserving the rhythm and tone of the original communications together with their content. The explanatory notes do a superb job of contextualizing the letters and identifying references and allusions within them. I could not help but admire the astonishing discernment and scholarship manifested in this volume.”—Sarah Wadsworth, professor of English at Marquette University
“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)
“This latest volume of the Complete Letters represents, no less than its forebears, an inestimable contribution to readers hitherto obliged to hunt down James’s letters in various selections or scattered archives, and deserves to be greeted with the same jubilant chorus of praise and gratitude.”—Alicia Rix,
Times Literary Supplement Table of ContentsThe Complete Letters of Henry James, 18841886, volume 1, contains 179 letters, of which 94 are published for the first time. Each letter is followed by previous publication information or a note that there is no previous publication.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “Fastened to London,” by Adrian Poole
Symbols and Abbreviations
Chronology
Errata
1884
November 11 To Catharine Walsh
November 13 To Francis Boott
November 14 To Mary Smith Mundella
November 14 To Grace Norton
November 14 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
November 15 To Emma Lazarus
November 17 To Houghton, Mifflin and Company
November 17 To Catharine Walsh
November 17 To Sarah Butler Wister
November 24 To Catharine Walsh
November 29 To Theodore E. Child
December 2 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
December 3 To Charles Scribner’s Sons
December 3 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
December 4 To William James
December 4 To Violet Paget
December 5 To Sidney Colvin
December 5 To Robert Louis Stevenson
December 8 To Grace Norton
December 9 To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
December 12 To Thomas Sergeant Perry
December 13 To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
December 20 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
December 23 To Catharine Walsh
December 24 To Frances Mary Peard
December 26 To Sirs
December 30 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
December 30 To Theodore E. Child
December 31 To Henrietta Reubell
1885
January 1 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
January 2 To William James
January 2 To Frederick Macmillan
January 3 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
January 7 To Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
January 7 To Frederick Macmillan
January 7 To Violet Paget
January 8 To William James
January 9 To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands
c. January 1117 To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands
January 20 To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
January 23 To Elizabeth Boott
January 23
1885 or 1886 To Bertha Price Lathbury
January 24 To Grace Norton
c. January 25February 23 To Elizabeth Boott
January 25 To Theodore E. Child
January 27 To Trübner and Company
January 28 To Edmund Gosse
January 28 To Frederick Macmillan
January 29 To William James
January 30 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
February 3 To Mary Anderson
February 3 To George Washburn Smalley
February 6 To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis
February 7 To Richard Watson Gilder
February 7 To Edmund Gosse
February 14 To William James
February 15 To William James
February 16 To Theodore E. Child
February 21 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
February 24 To Elizabeth Boott
February 24 To Sir John Forbes Clark
February 25 To Edmund Gosse
February 26 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
March 3 To Edwin Lawrence Godkin
March 4 To Grace Norton
March 4 To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands
March 9 To Marian “Clover” Hooper Adams
March 10 To Mary Smith Mundella
March 20 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
March 21 To Grace Norton
March 23 To Elizabeth Boott
March 23 To Charles Scribner’s Sons
April 10 To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis
April 13 To Ernest Hartley Coleridge
April 16 To Edmund Gosse
April 17 To Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill
April 18 To James Ripley Osgood
April 24 To Elizabeth Boott
April 26 To Jessie Percy Butler Duncan Phipps
April 28 To Houghton, Mifflin and Company
April 20 c. June 20 To George Abbot James
May 4 To Elizabeth Boott
May 5 To Frederick Macmillan
May 6 To Pembroke College Fellows
May 6 To Laurence Alma-Tadema
May 7 To Frederick Macmillan
May 9 To Francis Boott
May 9 To Grace Norton
May 10 To Violet Paget
May 12 To Catharine Walsh
May 13 To Elizabeth Boott
May 13 To Theodore E. Child
May 13 To John Milton Hay
May 15 To Lucy Lane Clifford
May 18 To Catharine Walsh
May 23 To William Dean Howells
May 25 To Houghton, Mifflin and Company
May 27 To Edmund Gosse
May 29 To James Russell Lowell
May 30 To Theodore E. Child
June 2 To Frederick Macmillan
June 3 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
June 4 To Emma Lazarus
June 5 To Frederick Macmillan
June 6 To Janet Hay Lord
June 6 To Frances Mary Peard
June 6 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
June 8 To Macmillan and Company
June 8 To Violet Paget
June 15 To Elizabeth Boott
June 15 To Lucy Cohen
June 15 To Henrietta Reubell
June 20 To Frances Rollins Morse
June 24 To Anthony John and Mary Smith Mundella
June 26 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
June 29 To Laura Mary Octavia Tennant Lyttelton
July 1 To Robert de Montesquiou and Edmond de Polignac
July 3 To Florence Boughton
July 5 To Henrietta Reubell
July 13 To Theodore E. Child
July 14 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
July 24 To William James
July 31 To William James
July 31 To Robert Louis Stevenson
July 31 To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
August 3 To Elizabeth Boott
August 8 To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis
August 11 To Lawrence Barrett
c. August 14 To
Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill August 14 To Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson
August 15 To Edgar Fawcett
August 16 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
August 21 To William James
August 21 To Robert de Montesquiou
August 23 To Grace Norton
August 25 To Frederick Macmillan
August 27 To Frederick Macmillan
August 27 To Benjamin Holt Ticknor
August 28 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
August 30 To Violet Paget
August 31 To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis
September 1 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
September 2 To Elizabeth Boott
September 2 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
September 9 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
September 9 To Emma Lazarus
September 10 To Frederick Macmillan
September 10 To Robert Louis Stevenson
September 13 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
September 15 To Frederick Macmillan
September 18 To Frances Van de Grift Stevenson
September 22 To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
September 24 To Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill
October 5 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
October 8 To Ellen “Nellie” Epps Gosse
October 9 To William James
October 11 To Francis Boott
October 16 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
October 18 To Theodore E. Child
October 31 To Theodore E. Child
October 31 To Henrietta Reubell
November 4 To Frederick Macmillan
November 6 To Robert Louis Stevenson
November 13 To Francis Boott
November 16 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
November 17 To Sidney Colvin
November 18 To Henrietta Reubell
November 20 To Louisa and Mary Lawrence
November 20 To Frederick Macmillan
November 21 To Edmund Gosse
November 30 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
December 3 To Sarah Butler Wister
December 4 To Frederick Macmillan
December 5 To Henrietta Reubell
December 8 To Robert Louis Stevenson
December 9 To Emma Lazarus
December 9 To Grace Norton
December 19 To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
December 21 To Henrietta Reubell
Biographical Register
General Editors’ Note
Works Cited
Index
