The American Scene

Peter Collister is the author of the award-winning two volumes of The Complete Writings of Henry James on Art and Drama (Cambridge, 2016). He has also edited James's autobiographical writings in A Small Boy and Others (2011) and 'Notes of a Son and Brother' and 'The Middle Years' (2011) and is the author of Writing the Self: Henry James and America (2007). He has also published numerous essays on English and French writers in British, European and American journals.

'… Collister's The American Scene is furnished with abundant resources in terms of its critical apparatus and annotations, far outstripping those included in previous editions of the text. These do rigorous work historicising James' text, linking the incidents of the travelogue to the events of James' own journey, offering insight into the relationship between life and art … Of added interest to [the] scholarly community … will be Collister's collations of variants on the basis of the galley proofs for the chapter on 'New England', held today at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale … Collister's introduction is masterful and authoritative, and very useful is his inclusion of an itinerary of James' American journey, as are his appendices … Collister's The American Scene is an excellent edition, which will hopefully provide the text with a new readership.' Giles Whiteley, Notes and Queries

• Acknowledgments; A note on this edition; Chronology: Henry James' life and writings; James' American itinerary; List of abbreviations; Editor's introduction; The American Scene; Glossary of foreign words and phrases; Notes on textual variants; Appendices; Select bibliography; Index.