About the Book
This second volume of The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887–1888 contains 182 letters, of which 120 are published for the first time, written from late December 1887 to November 19, 1888. These letters continue to mark Henry James’s ongoing efforts to care for his sister, develop his work, strengthen his professional status, build friendships, engage timely political and economic issues, and maximize his income. James details work on The Aspern Papers, The Reverberator, Partial Portraits, and The Tragic Muse. This volume opens with some of James’s social visits, includes the death of longtime friend Lizzie Boott, and concludes with James on the Continent.
Author Bio
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.
Praise
Praise for earlier volumes in The Complete Letters of Henry James series
“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
“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)
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Symbols and Abbreviations
Chronology
Errata
1887
24 December To Rhoda Broughton
24 December To Edmund Gosse
30 December To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1888
2 January To William Dean Howells
3 January To Edmund Gosse
4 January To Urbain Mengin
4, 10 January and 5 February To Grace Norton
6 January To Rhoda Broughton
6 January To Joseph Pennell
7 January To Edmund Gosse
9 January To Edmund Gosse
10 January To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
15 January To Henrietta Reubell
15 January To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
16 January To Robert Underwood Johnson
19 January To Edmund Gosse
20 January To Rhoda Broughton
23 January To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
24 January To Louisa Lawrence and Mary Lawrence
25 January To Edmund Gosse
26 January To Frederick Macmillan
28 January To Alice Stopford Green
28 January To Lady Caroline Elizabeth Blanche Lindsay
29 January To Elizabeth Boott
30 January To Edmund Gosse
February To Alice James
3 February To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
8 February To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
13 February To Charles Stanley Reinhart
15 February To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
17 February To Frances Balfour
20 February To William James
22 February To Henrietta Reubell
23 February To Paul Bourget
23 February To Alice James
23 February To Urbain Mengin
24 February To Daniel Sargent Curtis
27 February To Edmund Gosse
28 February To Edmund Gosse
28 February To Robert Louis Stevenson
29 February To Edmund Gosse
March or April To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
3 March To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
3 March To Mrs. Brooke
10 March To Lady Constance Leslie
10 March To Laura Wagnière
15 March To Florence Bell
18 March To Rhoda Broughton
18 March To Isabella Stewart Gardner
18 March 1888–89 To Florence Robb
19 March To Urbain Mengin
21 March To Frederick Macmillan
21 March To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
23 March To Rhoda Broughton
23 March To Theodore E. Child
27 March To William Archer
27 March To Theodore E. Child
1 April To Henrietta Reubell
2 April To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis
3 April To Francis Boott
3 April To Urbain Mengin
4 April To Louisa and Mary Lawrence
5 April To Henrietta Reubell
6 April To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
6 April To Louisa Lawrence
8 April To R. & R. Clark
9 April To Robert Underwood Johnson
10 April To George Henry Boughton
10 April To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
11 April To Edward Lee Childe
12 April To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
21 April To Francis Boott
21 April To Rhoda Broughton
21 April To Constance de Rothschild Flower, Lady Battersea
21 April To Henrietta Reubell
28 April To Samuel Dana Horton
1 May To Rhoda Broughton
[2 May] To Rhoda Broughton
3 May To Rhoda Broughton
3 May To Edmund Gosse
6 May To Rhoda Broughton
9 May To Frederic William Henry Myers
9 May To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands
10 May To Thomas George Bain
12 May To Rhoda Broughton
15 May To Francis Boott
15 May To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis
15 May To William Fraser Rae
<b>late May<n>early June</b> To Samuel Dana Horton
19 May To Mrs. Robb
19 May To Edinburgh Philosophical Institute
21 May To Houghton, Mifflin and Company
22 May To Katharine Sands Godkin
22 May To Edmund Gosse
22 May To Catharine Walsh
23 May To Violet Paget
24 May To Frederick Macmillan
24 May To Henrietta Reubell
25 May To James Ripley Osgood
26 May To Alice Stopford Green
26 May To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands
29 May To Harry Quilter
31 May To Harry Quilter
1 June To Frederic William Henry Myers
4 June To Edmund Gosse
4 June To Henrietta Reubell
5 June To Dr. Edward Eggleston
9 June To Daniel Conner Lathbury
12 June To Lilian June Bailey Henschel
13 June To Charles Stanley Reinhart
20 June To Henrietta Reubell
26 June To William James
28 June To Harry Quilter
28 June To Harry Quilter
29 June To Edmund Gosse
30 June To Henrietta Reubell
2 July To Elizabeth “Lily” Norton
2 July To Maria Theodora Sedgwick
3 July To Henrietta Reubell
3, 5 July To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward
4 July To Henrietta Reubell
4 July To Harry Quilter
5 July To Frederick Macmillan
6 July To Edmund Gosse
6 July To Alice Stopford Green
6 July To Harry Quilter
7 July To Robert Underwood Johnson
7 July To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis
7 July To Harry Quilter
8 July To Sarah Butler Wister
10 July To Henrietta Reubell
12 July To Walter Besant and Edmund Gosse
14 July To Edmund Gosse
17 July To Harry Quilter
20 July To Harry Quilter
24 July To Harry Quilter
26 July To Francis Boott
26 July To Kate Sara Sibley Gurney
27 July To Charles Stanley Reinhart
27 July To Isabella Stewart Gardner
31 July To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin
31 July To Robert Louis Stevenson
1 August To Edmund Gosse
4 August To Charles Stanley Reinhart
7 August To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
11 August To Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White
13 August To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
15 August To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
20 August To Edmund Gosse
22 August To Edmund Gosse
26 August To Edmund Gosse
27 August To Edmund Gosse
29 August To Henrietta Reubell
29 August To Elizabeth “Lily” Millet
10 September To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
10 September To Lady Florence Eveleen Olliffe Bell
10 September To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
11 September To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley
28 September To Urbain Mengin
29 September To William Dean Howells
29 September To Urbain Mengin
29 September To Henrietta Reubell
30 September To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
30 September To Grace Norton
30 September To Catharine Walsh
13 October To Frederick Macmillan
15 October To Laura Alma-Tadema
20 October To Frederic William Henry Myers
24 October To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
28 October To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
28 October To Richard Watson Gilder
29 October To Francis Boott
29 October To William James
29 October To Henrietta Reubell
30 October To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis
30 October To Houghton, Mifflin and Company
1 November; misdated October To Robert Underwood Johnson
6 November To Rhoda Broughton
6 November To Daniel Sargent Curtis
10 November To Constance de Rothschild Flower, Lady Battersea
11 November To Elizabeth “Dolly” Yates Thompson
13 November To Thomas Bailey Aldrich
16 November To Elizabeth “Lily” Millet
18 November To Daniel Sargent Curtis
19 November To Daniel Sargent Curtis
19 November To James Russell Lowell
19 November To Henrietta Reubell
Biographical Register
General Editors’ Note
Works Cited
Index
