The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1876–1878 – Volume 1

This critical and scholarly edition presents the complete letters of Henry James, one of the great novelists and letter writers of the English language. Comprising more than ten thousand letters and addressing a remarkably wide range of topics, this edition is an indispensable resource for students and scholars of James, of the European novel and modern literature, and of American and English literature, culture, and criticism.

Written between December 1876 and December 1877, the letters in this volume trace James’s departure from Paris and his arrival and domestication in London, where he would live at least part of each year for most of the rest of his life. In London, James quickly becomes immersed in the social and literary life of the city and of the nation. He is invited as an honorary guest to the Athenaeum Club; dines with Lord Houghton, William Gladstone, Alfred Tennyson, Heinrich Schliemann, and “half a dozen other men of ‘high culture’”; and continues his friendship with Turgenev, who lives in Paris. In addition to his regular production of critical and travel essays, he completes The American, contracts with Macmillan to publish French Poets and Novelists, revises Watch and Ward for book publication, and travels to France and Italy.

Pierre A. Walker is a professor of English at Salem State University. He is the editor of Henry James on Culture: Collected Essays on Politics and the American Social Scene (Nebraska, 1999).

Greg W. Zacharias is a professor of English at Creighton University, where he coordinates the Humanities Research Group and directs the Center for Henry James Studies. He is the editor of A Companion to Henry James and coeditor of Tracing Henry James.

Martha Banta is a distinguished professor of English emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of Henry James and the Occult: The Great Extension.