The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887–1888: Volume 1(The Complete Letters of Henry James)

This first volume in The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887-1888 contains 154 letters, of which 94 are published for the first time, written from early January to December 22, 1887. These letters 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," Partial Portraits, and plans The Reverberator. This volume opens with James in the midst of a long sojourn in Italy and concludes with his inquiring about both the status of his essay to the American Copyright League and also the story "The Liar."

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Symbols and Abbreviations Chronology Errata   1887 1 January to c. 21 July 1887          To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin 4 January           To Linda White Mazini Villari 19 January         To Katharine de Kay Bronson 20 January          To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley 21 January         To Robert Louis Stevenson 21 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson 22 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson 25 January          To Grace Norton 26 January          To Katharine de Kay Bronson 26 January          To Margaret Tod Cantagalli 27 January          To Robert Underwood Johnson 27 January          To Edith Peruzzi 28 January          To Eleanor Frances Poynter 31 January          To Walter Herries Pollock 5 February          To Katharine de Kay Bronson 6 February          To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin 7 February          To Eliza Lynn Linton 18 February         To Katharine de Kay Bronson 18 February         To William James 25 February         To Edwin Lawrence Godkin 25 February         To William Dean Howells 26 February         To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands 26 February         To Catharine Walsh 26 February         To Catharine Walsh 27 February         To Grace Norton 27 February         To Sarah Butler Wister 28 February         To Katharine Peabody Loring March                To Laura WagniÈre 1 March             To James Russell Lowell 2 March             To George du Maurier 8 March             To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin 13 March            To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin 15 March            To Francis Boott 23 March            To Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin 6 April             To Francis Boott 7 April             To William James 11 April            To Robert Underwood Johnson 12 April            To John Milton Hay 12 April            To Hannah Locker-Lampson 13 April to 25 May 1887    To Somerset Beaumont 14 April            To Ellen “Nellie” Epps Gosse 23 April            To Katharine de Kay Bronson 23 April            To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis 24 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 Moscheles 25 April            To Sir 2 May               To Robert Underwood Johnson 3 May               To Katharine de Kay Bronson 3 May               To William James 3 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 Stevenson 17 August           To Edmund Gosse 17 August           To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands 17 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 Gosse 7 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 Gardner 19 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 Johnson 30 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 Wolseley 11 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                      

About the Author :
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.  

Review :
“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