Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887–1888

Henry James (1843–1916) was an American author and literary critic. He wrote some two dozen novels, including The 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 the author of Henry James Framed: Material Representations of the Master (Nebraska, 2022), among others.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.Sarah Wadsworth is a professor of English at Marquette University. She is the author of In the Company of Books: Literature and Its “Classes” in Nineteenth-Century America.

“Michael Anesko’s superb introduction to both volumes [The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1878–1880, volumes 1 and 2] places James’s letters in these crucial years in the context of James’s literary works and the broader social history in which they were produced. . . . These new volumes of The Complete Letters of Henry James deserve our admiration for their scholarly rigor and the teamwork required not only of the volume editors and Michael Anesko but also of the associate editors, editorial assistants, and advisory group of this monumental project. . . . These handsome volumes . . . [are] extraordinary resources.”-John Carlos Rowe, Resource for American Literary Study“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  “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, The 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 "Michael Anesko and Gregory W. Zacharias's achievement amounts to a culmination; they have given us authoritative editions comprising all James’s extant letters, complete with helpful contextual information."-Rafael Walker, Edith Wharton Review "This is a great addition to libraries of all sorts, and it should be inspiration for writers to browse through some of these letters to find another writer’s input on topics we all have to ponder."-Pennsylvania Literary Journal

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionSymbols and AbbreviationsChronologyErrata  18871 January to c. 21 July 1887          To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin4 January           To Linda White Mazini Villari19 January         To Katharine de Kay Bronson20 January          To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley21 January         To Robert Louis Stevenson21 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson22 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson25 January          To Grace Norton26 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson26 January          To Margaret Tod Cantagalli27 January          To Robert Underwood Johnson27 January          To Edith Peruzzi28 January          To Eleanor Frances Poynter31 January          To Walter Herries Pollock5 February          To Katharine de Kay Bronson6 February          To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin7 February          To Eliza Lynn Linton18 February         To Katharine de Kay Bronson18 February         To William James25 February         To Edwin Lawrence Godkin25 February         To William Dean Howells26 February         To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands26 February         To Catharine Walsh26 February         To Catharine Walsh27 February         To Grace Norton27 February         To Sarah Butler Wister28 February         To Katharine Peabody LoringMarch                To Laura WagniÈre1 March             To James Russell Lowell2 March             To George du Maurier8 March             To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin13 March            To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin15 March            To Francis Boott23 March            To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin6 April             To Francis Boott7 April             To William James11 April            To Robert Underwood Johnson12 April            To John Milton Hay12 April            To Hannah Locker-Lampson13 April to 25 May 1887    To Somerset Beaumont14 April            To Ellen “Nellie” Epps Gosse23 April            To Katharine de Kay Bronson23 April            To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis24 April            To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis    24 April            To Alice Howe Gibbens James          24 April            To Edmund Gosse                      24 April            To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands        25 April            To Felix Moscheles25 April            To Sir2 May               To Robert Underwood Johnson3 May               To Katharine de Kay Bronson3 May               To William James3 May               To James Russell Lowell               15 May              To Robert Louis Stevenson             16 May              To Robert Louis Stevenson             20 May              To Frances “Fanny” Anne Kemble      22 May              To Linda White Mazini Villari          23 May              To Violet Paget                        23 May              To Laura WagniÈre                      June 1887        To Robert Louis Stevenson             12 June             To Thomas Bailey Aldrich               13 June             To Robert Underwood Johnson           14 June             To John White Alexander            16 June             To James Russell Lowell             16 June             To Catharine Walsh                  18 June             To Juliet Trower                    21 June             To Thomas Bailey Aldrich              24 June             To Katharine de Kay Bronson           28 June             To Robert Underwood Johnson            July 1887        To Robert Louis Stevenson             3 July              To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis     9 July              To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis     21 July             To John Milton Hay                 21 July             To Eliot Norton                      22 July             To Isabella Stewart Gardner            22 July             To John Milton Hay                     23 July             To Grace Norton                      26 July             To Isabella Stewart Gardner           26 July             To Catharine Walsh                   27 July             To Charles Eliot Norton                28 July             To John Milton Hay                    28 July             To Frances “Fanny” van de Grift Stevenson    2 August 1887-89    To Lillian June Bailey Henschel  2 August            To Robert Louis Stevenson 3 August            To Edmund Gosse  5 August            To James Ripley Osgood   7 August            To Elizabeth Blakeway Smith  10 August           To Mary Theresa Mundella 10 August           To James Ripley Osgood 11 August           To Frances “Fanny” van de Grift Stevenson17 August           To Edmund Gosse17 August           To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands17 August           To Frances “Fanny” van de Grift Stevenson   18 August           To Theodore E. Child    18 August           To Katharine Peabody Loring     18 August           To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands  19 August           To Edmund Gosse     23 August           To Florence Bell      23 August           To John Milton Hay  29 August           To Florence Bell 31 August           To Edmund Gosse7 September         To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis 7 September         To Daniel Sargent Curtis    9 September         To Sidney Colvin  17 September        To Katharine de Kay Bronson 17 September        To Charles Eliot Norton 20 September        To Theodore E. Child  20 September        To Elizabeth “Lily” Millet  20 September        To Elizabeth “Lily” Norton 21 September        To Sidney Colvin 24 September        To Samuel Dana Horton 24 September        To Samuel Dana Horton  27 September        To Samuel Dana Horton 27 September        To Henrietta Reubell   27 September        To Catharine Walsh 28 September        To Elizabeth “Lily” Millet October               Robert Louis Stevenson  1, 5 October        To William James     7 October           To Sarah Butler Wister  19 October          To Thomas Bailey Aldrich  19 October          To Isabella Stewart Gardner19 October          To Frederick Macmillan     20 October          To Isabella Stewart Gardner   20 October          To Isabella Stewart Gardner      20 October          To Robert Louis Stevenson     21 October          To Frederick Macmillan       28 October          To Robert Underwood Johnson30 October          To Alice Stopford Green                30 October          To Margaret Oliphant                  30 October          To Henrietta Reubell      12 November         To Edwin Austen Abbey                12 November         To Thomas Bailey Aldrich     13 November         To Elizabeth Boott     13 November         To Robert Underwood Johnson    15 November         To American Copyright League    15 November         To Robert Underwood Johnson    17 November         To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley 21 November         To Henrietta Reubell     23 November         To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley  24 November          To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands  29 November         To Lillian June Bailey Henschel   30 November         To Frederick Macmillan        30 November         To Urbain Mengin          5 December          To Isabella Stewart Gardner  5 December          To Robert Louis Stevenson  8 December          To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley11 December         To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley  18 December         To Ariana Randolph Wormeley and Daniel Sargent Curtis 18 December         To Edmund Gosse 18 December         To Robert Louis Stevenson       18 December         To Owen Wister             19 December         To Robert Underwood Johnson     19 December         To Henrietta Reubell                  22 December         To Robert Underwood Johnson          Biographical Register                        General Editors’ Note          Works Cited