Complete Letters of Henry James, 1884–1886

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.

• The 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    1884November 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    1885January 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

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