The Complete Letters of Henry James: 1888-1891: Volume 1

This first volume in The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1888-1891 contains 171 letters, of which 119 are published for the first time, written from late November 1888 to April 20, 1890. 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 with timely political and economic issues, and maximize his income, which included hiring an agent. James details his work on The Tragic Muse, ＂Mrs. Temperly,＂ ＂An Animated Conversation,＂ ＂The Solution,＂ and other fiction. This volume opens with James in France and concludes with James on the Continent. Dee MacCormack introduces the volume, paying close attention to James’s increasing interest in the theater.

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 other works.

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.

Dee MacCormack is an independent scholar and completed her PhD on Henry James in 2021 at the University of Aberdeen. She is the author of numerous papers and articles on Henry James.