The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887–1888: Volume 2(The Complete Letters of Henry James)

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.

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 late Mayearly June  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

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.  

Review :
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)