Table of Contents

The Complete Letters of Henry James, 18841886, volume 1, contains 179 letters, of which 94 are published for the first time. Each letter is followed by previous publication information or a note that there is no previous publication.

Acknowledgments    
Introduction: “Fastened to London,” by Adrian Poole    
Symbols and Abbreviations    
Chronology    
Errata    

1884

November 11    To Catharine Walsh    
November 13    To Francis Boott    
November 14    To Mary Smith Mundella    
November 14    To Grace Norton    
November 14    To Thomas Sergeant Perry    
November 15    To Emma Lazarus    
November 17    To Houghton, Mifflin and Company    
November 17    To Catharine Walsh    
November 17    To Sarah Butler Wister    
November 24    To Catharine Walsh    
November 29    To Theodore E. Child    
December 2    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
December 3    To Charles Scribner’s Sons    
December 3    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
December 4    To William James    
December 4    To Violet Paget    
December 5    To Sidney Colvin    
December 5    To Robert Louis Stevenson    
December 8    To Grace Norton    
December 9    To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward    
December 12    To Thomas Sergeant Perry    
December 13    To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward    
December 20    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
December 23    To Catharine Walsh    
December 24    To Frances Mary Peard    
December 26    To Sirs    
December 30    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
December 30    To Theodore E. Child    
December 31    To Henrietta Reubell    

1885

January 1    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
January 2    To William James    
January 2    To Frederick Macmillan    
January 3    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
January 7    To Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones    
January 7    To Frederick Macmillan    
January 7    To Violet Paget    
January 8    To William James    
January 9    To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands    
c. January 1117 To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands    
January 20    To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward    
January 23    To Elizabeth Boott    
January 23 1885 or 1886 To Bertha Price Lathbury    
January 24    To Grace Norton    
c. January 25February 23 To Elizabeth Boott    
January 25    To Theodore E. Child    
January 27    To Trübner and Company    
January 28    To Edmund Gosse    
January 28    To Frederick Macmillan    
January 29    To William James    
January 30    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
February 3    To Mary Anderson    
February 3    To George Washburn Smalley    
February 6    To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis    
February 7    To Richard Watson Gilder    
February 7    To Edmund Gosse    
February 14    To William James    
February 15    To William James    
February 16    To Theodore E. Child    
February 21    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
February 24    To Elizabeth Boott    
February 24    To Sir John Forbes Clark    
February 25    To Edmund Gosse    
February 26    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
March 3    To Edwin Lawrence Godkin    
March 4    To Grace Norton    
March 4    To Mary Morton Hartpence Sands    
March 9    To Marian “Clover” Hooper Adams    
March 10    To Mary Smith Mundella    
March 20    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
March 21    To Grace Norton    
March 23    To Elizabeth Boott    
March 23    To Charles Scribner’s Sons    
April 10    To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis    
April 13    To Ernest Hartley Coleridge    
April 16    To Edmund Gosse    
April 17    To Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill    
April 18    To James Ripley Osgood    
April 24    To Elizabeth Boott    
April 26    To Jessie Percy Butler Duncan Phipps    
April 28    To Houghton, Mifflin and Company    
April 20 c. June 20 To George Abbot James    
May 4    To Elizabeth Boott    
May 5    To Frederick Macmillan    
May 6    To Pembroke College Fellows    
May 6    To Laurence Alma-Tadema    
May 7    To Frederick Macmillan    
May 9    To Francis Boott    
May 9    To Grace Norton    
May 10    To Violet Paget    
May 12    To Catharine Walsh    
May 13    To Elizabeth Boott    
May 13    To Theodore E. Child    
May 13    To John Milton Hay    
May 15    To Lucy Lane Clifford    
May 18    To Catharine Walsh    
May 23    To William Dean Howells    
May 25    To Houghton, Mifflin and Company    
May 27    To Edmund Gosse    
May 29    To James Russell Lowell    
May 30    To Theodore E. Child    
June 2    To Frederick Macmillan    
June 3    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
June 4    To Emma Lazarus    
June 5    To Frederick Macmillan    
June 6    To Janet Hay Lord    
June 6    To Frances Mary Peard    
June 6    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
June 8    To Macmillan and Company    
June 8    To Violet Paget    
June 15    To Elizabeth Boott    
June 15    To Lucy Cohen    
June 15    To Henrietta Reubell    
June 20    To Frances Rollins Morse    
June 24    To Anthony John and Mary Smith Mundella    
June 26    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
June 29    To Laura Mary Octavia Tennant Lyttelton    
July 1     To Robert de Montesquiou and Edmond de Polignac    
July 3     To Florence Boughton    
July 5     To Henrietta Reubell    
July 13    To Theodore E. Child    
July 14    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
July 24    To William James    
July 31    To William James    
July 31    To Robert Louis Stevenson    
July 31    To Mary Augusta Arnold Ward    
August 3    To Elizabeth Boott    
August 8    To Lady Elizabeth Eberstadt Lewis    
August 11    To Lawrence Barrett    
c. August 14    To Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill    
August 14    To Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson    
August 15     To Edgar Fawcett    
August 16    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
August 21    To William James    
August 21    To Robert de Montesquiou    
August 23    To Grace Norton    
August 25    To Frederick Macmillan    
August 27    To Frederick Macmillan    
August 27    To Benjamin Holt Ticknor    
August 28    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
August 30     To Violet Paget    
August 31    To Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis    
September 1     To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
September 2    To Elizabeth Boott    
September 2     To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
September 9    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
September 9    To Emma Lazarus    
September 10    To Frederick Macmillan    
September 10    To Robert Louis Stevenson    
September 13    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
September 15    To Frederick Macmillan    
September 18    To Frances Van de Grift Stevenson    
September 22    To Lady Louisa Erskine Wolseley    
September 24    To Jane Dalzell Finlay Hill    
October 5    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
October 8    To Ellen “Nellie” Epps Gosse    
October 9    To William James    
October 11    To Francis Boott    
October 16    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
October 18    To Theodore E. Child    
October 31     To Theodore E. Child    
October 31     To Henrietta Reubell    
November 4    To Frederick Macmillan    
November 6    To Robert Louis Stevenson    
November 13    To Francis Boott    
November 16    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
November 17    To Sidney Colvin    
November 18    To Henrietta Reubell    
November 20    To Louisa and Mary Lawrence    
November 20    To Frederick Macmillan    
November 21    To Edmund Gosse    
November 30    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
December 3    To Sarah Butler Wister    
December 4    To Frederick Macmillan    
December 5    To Henrietta Reubell    
December 8    To Robert Louis Stevenson    
December 9    To Emma Lazarus    
December 9    To Grace Norton    
December 19    To Thomas Bailey Aldrich    
December 21    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 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 author of Generous Mistakes: Incidents of Error in Henry James.
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.
Adrian Poole is an emeritus professor of English literature and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has edited The Princess Casamassima for The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James, of which he is also a general editor.
 

Reviews

Praise for earlier volumes in The Complete Letters of Henry James series

“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)
 
“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