The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1884-1886 - (Hardcover)

About the Book

This fourteenth installment in the complete collection of Henry James's more than ten thousand letters records 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.

Book Synopsis

Recipient of the Approved Edition seal from the Modern Language Association's Committee on Scholarly Editions

This volume of The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1884-1886 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.

Review Quotes

Praise 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

About the Author

Henry James (1843-1916) was an American author and literary critic. He wrote some two dozen novels, including Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl, and left behind more than ten thousand letters.
Michael Anesko is a professor of English and American studies at Pennsylvania State University. He is a general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James and author of Generous Mistakes: Incidents of Error in Henry James.
Greg W. Zacharias is a professor of English and the director of the Center for Henry James Studies at Creighton University. He is editor of the Henry James Review and of A Companion to Henry James.
Katie Sommer has been associate editor of the Complete Letters of Henry James series since 2007 and has worked on the Henry James letters project since 2001.
Adrian Poole is an emeritus professor of English literature and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has edited The Princess Casamassima for The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James, of which he is also a general editor.