Complete Letters of Henry James, 1878–1880

Henry James (1843–1916) wrote short stories, plays, literary criticism, and travel essays and is most famous for his many novels, which include The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.Pierre A. Walker is a professor of English at Salem State University. He is the editor of Henry James on Culture: Collected Essays on Politics and the American Social Scene (Nebraska, 1999).Greg W. Zacharias is a professor of English at Creighton University, where he directs the Center for Henry James Studies. He is the editor of A Companion to Henry James and coeditor of Tracing Henry James.

Praise 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 Telegraph

• Acknowledgments    Symbols and Abbreviations    Chronology     Errata    1879September 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    1880January 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