Synopses & Reviews
"He was a supreme artist in the intimacies and connections that bind people together or tear them apart," says Leon Edel in his introduction to this collection of Henry James's best letters. Edelhas chosen, from the four-volume epistolarium already published, those letters which especially illuminate James's writing, his life, his thoughts and fancies, his literary theories, and his most meaningful friendships. In addition,there are two dozen letters that have never before been printed.
In its unity, its elegance, and its reflection of almost a century of Anglo-American life and letters, this correspondence can well besaid to belong to literature as well as to biography. Besides epistles to James's friends and family--including his celebrated brother, William--there are letters to notables such as Flaubert and Daudet in France; Stevenson, Gosse,Wells, and Conrad in England; and Americans from William Dean Howells to Edith Wharton. The latter correspondence, in particular, enlarges our understanding of James's complex involvements with Wharton and her circle; among thepreviously unpublished letters are several to Wharton's rakish lover, Morton Fullerton.
This masterly selection allows us to observe the precocious adolescent, the twenty-six-year-old setting out forEurope, the perceptive traveler in Switzerland and Italy, and the man-about-London consorting with Leslie Stephen and William Morris, meeting Darwin and Rossetti, hearing Ruskin lecture, visiting George Eliot. The letters describeperiods of stress as well as happiness, failure as well as success, loneliness as well as sociability. They portray in considerable psychological depth James's handling of his problems (particularly with his family), and they allow usto see him adjust his mask for each correspondent.
Review
Richly rewarding to all readers who wish to understand the complexities of James's personality and the deep, often austere dedication to his art.
Review
Whether humorous, angry or depressed, whether sending brief businesslike notes to his publishers or spinning out his gorgeous phrases for friends such as Edith Wharton or Henry Adams, James is always James--a writerwho lived almost exclusively in the exercise of his supreme artistic gifts.
Review
The letters are avid, irrepressible, by turns mocking and rhapsodic, shifting in style from the ornate to the vernacular, punctuated by parodies of high-flown romances and sketches of local scenes and characters.
Review
From the first letters there is evidence of James's painterly art, his feelings for colors and textures, for shapes and tastes, for the blend of impressions physical and psychological that foreshadowed his novels.One follows them with the fascination that attends the development of genius made visible.
Review
The letters provide a rich, fascinating record of James' genius for friendship, his affection, his wit, his crowded, pleasant life. In their precise observations of the personalities and works of the most famousartists, actors, statesmen and writers of the period...they provide a wonderful record of the intellectual and social life of his time.
About the Author
Among his many accomplishments over some forty years devoted to James scholarship, Leon Edelis the author of the monumental five-volume Life of Henry James,which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He is Citizens Professor of English at the <>University of Hawaii.
Table of Contents
Introduction: On Selecting Letters
Chronology