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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Reader:  

Henry James

 

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Anthony Trollope : Autobiography

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 25 November 1883: 'I have read Trollope's autobiography and regard it as one of the most curious and amazing books in all literature, for its density, blockishness and general thickness and soddenness.'

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Rudyard Kipling : McAndrew's Hymn

In her Writer's Recollections (1919; pp.325-26), Mrs Humphrey Ward would remember an occasion in Italy when, Paul Bourget having failed to translate Kipling's "McAndrew's Hymn" into French, Henry James 'straight away put it into "vigorous idiomatic French" ...'

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

H. Rider Haggard : She

"'More even than with the contemptible inexpressiveness of the whole thing,' Henry James wrote after reading She ... 'I am struck with the beastly bloodiness of it ...'"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Meredith : Lord Ormont and his Aminta

"[George] Meredtih's penultimate novel, Lord Ormont and his Aminta (1894), was, [Henry] James told Edmund Gosse [in letter of 22 August 1894], 'unspeakable' ... he could proceed only at 'the maximum rate of ten pages -- ten insufferable and unprofitable pages, a day'."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : [a guidebook to the areas round London]

'Murray (of the Hand-Books) has lately put forward a work which I have found very full of entertaining reading: a couple of well-sized volumes treating of every place of the smallest individuality within circuit of twenty miles round London'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Gustave Flaubert : correspondence

Leon Edel, introducing vol 1 of Henry James's Letters: " ... [By the end of his life Henry James] had read Flaubert's general correspondence with the close attention of a craftsman seeking to discover how a fellow-artist lived and worked. He had read critically all of Stevenson's letters ..."

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edmund Gosse : biographies

Leon Edel, introducing vol 1 of Henry James's Letters: "[Edmund Gosse] had written biographies which James had criticized but read with lively interest."

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : Letters

Leon Edel, introducing vol 1 of Henry James's Letters, on James's feelings regarding publication of letters: "He opposed truncation. 'One has the vague sense of omissions ... one smells the thing unprinted,' he remarked after reading [Sidney] Colvin's edition of Stevenson's letters."

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

Noted by Leon Edel in "Brief Chronology" of Henry James: "1860: Returns to Newport ... Reads Balzac and Merimee."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Prosper Merimee : unknown

Noted by Leon Edel in "Brief Chronology" of Henry James: "1860: Returns to Newport ... Reads Balzac and Merimee."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

unknown : unknown

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from school in Geneva, 26 January 1860: 'I fully intended to study Greek when I came here, but have not now the time ... I needn't be discouraged; I read the other day of a man with a good knowledge of Greek who didn't begin to study it till he was forty-six years of age'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

 : magazines and newspapers

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 27 March 1860: 'You asked me in one of your letters whether there were many English books in Geneva ... I have read very few. The reading time that I have had has consisted in little odd disconnected moments, so I have read mostly little bits from Magazines, Newspapers, and 'the like.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

  

 : Cornhill Magazine

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 27 March 1860: "You asked me in one of your letters whether there were many English books in Geneva ... I have read very few. The reading time that I have had has consisted in little odd disconnected moments, so I have read mostly little bits from Magazines, Newspapers, and 'the like.' I suppose that 'down in Louisiana' you have not seen any numbers of the new 'Cornhill Magazine' edited by Thackeray. I have seen the three numbers that are out and find it very good ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

A. W. Kinglake : Eothen

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 27 March 1860: "Have you ever read 'Eothen' a book of Eastern travels. I have just been reading it."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : The British Chronicle

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from home of host family in Bonn, Sunday 5 August 1860: "[on Wednesday morning] I sat down to read [in the study] till our room should be made ready for me to go in and set to work. I looked over an old volume of the 'British Chronicle,' a lot of bound weekly newspapers of the time of Byron, Shelley, Tom Moore and Walter Scott and which I had discovered in a corner the night before. Then I finished the Letters of Lady M. W. Montague which I had commenced a few days before from curiosity and had continued from interest."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : bound weekly newspapers

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from home of host family in Bonn, Sunday 5 August 1860: "[on Wednesday morning] I sat down to read [in the study] till our room should be made ready for me to go in and set to work. I looked over an old volume of the 'British Chronicle,' a lot of bound weekly newspapers of the time of Byron, Shelley, Tom Moore and Walter Scott and which I had discovered in a corner the night before. Then I finished the Letters of Lady M. W. Montague which I had commenced a few days before from curiosity and had continued from interest."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu : Letters

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from home of host family in Bonn, Sunday 5 August 1860: "[on Wednesday morning] I sat down to read [in the study] till our room should be made ready for me to go in and set to work. I looked over an old volume of the 'British Chronicle,' a lot of bound weekly newspapers of the time of Byron, Shelley, Tom Moore and Walter Scott and which I had discovered in a corner the night before. Then I finished the Letters of Lady M. W. Montague which I had commenced a few days before from curiosity and had continued from interest."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Friedrich von Schiller : Maria Stuart

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from home of host family in Bonn, Sunday 5 August 1860: "[on Wednesday morning] We [himself and his brother William] ... commenced study, which simply consists in translating German into English. I am now working at Schiller's play of Maria Stuart, which I like exceedingly, though I do get on so slowly with it ... I worked on ploddingly till dinner-time which is one o'clock."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Browning : plays

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 18 April 1864: "I got Browning's plays from J[ohn].'s [La Farge] and have been reading them with deep interest."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Maurice de Guerin : Journals/Letters

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton of the North American Review, offering book review, 9 August 1864: "I have just been reading with great interest the Journals and Letters of Maurice and Eugenie de Guerin -- (Paris, 1864, 2d Edition.) I should like to write a notice of the two books combined; or at least of Maurice alone ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Eugenie de Guerin : Journals and Letters

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton of the North American Review, offering book review, 9 August 1864: "I have just been reading with great interest the Journals and Letters of Maurice and Eugenie de Guerin -- (Paris, 1864, 2d Edition.) I should like to write a notice of the two books combined; or at least of Maurice alone ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Vaughan : English Revolutions in Religion

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 28 October 1864: "What are you reading? I have just read Vaughan's Eng. Revolutions in Religion. Interesting subject but middling book."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Harriet Beecher Stowe : [two or three works]

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 28 February 1866: " ... allow me to retract my proposal to deal critically with Mrs. Stowe, in the N[orth]. A[merican]. R[eview]. I have been re-reading two or three of her books and altho' I see them to be full of pleasant qualities, they lack those solid merits wh. an indistinct recollection of them had caused me to attribute to them ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

unknown : unknown

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 15 August 1867: "Here I have been ... all summer and here I expect to stay. You may imagine that existence has not been thrilling or exciting. I have seen no one and done nothing -- unless it be read; which I have done to some extent."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Hippolyte Taine : Notes sur Paris, Vie et opinions de M. Frederic-Thomas Graindorge

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 20 September 1867: "I had just been reading, when your letter came, Taine's Graindorge, of which you speak ... I enjoy Taine more almost than I do any one; but his philosophy of things strikes me as essentially superficial and as if subsisting in the most undignified subservience to his passion for description ... I have also read the last new Mondays of Ste.B, and always with increasing pleasure."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve : Nouveaux lundis

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 20 September 1867: "I had just been reading, when your letter came, Taine's Graindorge, of which you speak ... I enjoy Taine more almost than I do any one; but his philosoph of things strikes me as essentially superficial and as if subsisting in the most undignified subservience to his passion for description ... I have also read the last new Mondays of Ste.B, and always with increasing pleasure."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Sand : Memoirs

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 20 September 1867: "I read recently, by the way ... [George Sand's] Memoirs a compact little work in ten volumes. It's all charming (if you are not too particular about the exact truth) but especially the two 1st volumes, containing a series of letters from her father, written during Napoleon's campaigns."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Matthew Arnold : New Poems

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, from Cambridge, Mass., 20 September 1867: "In English I have read nothing new, except M. Arnold's New Poems, which of course you will see or have seen."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William James : Review of Herman Grimm, Unuberwundliche Machte

Henry James to William James, 22 November 1867: "I recd. about a fortnight ago -- your letter with the review of Grimm's novel ... I liked your article very much ... It struck me as ... very readable. I copied it forthwith and sent it to the Nation."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Letter

  

unknown : French texts

Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 27 March 1868: "I read more or less, of course, but nothing noteworthy. A good deal of French, of which, at times, I get pretty sick."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : unknown

Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Stendhal  : unknown

Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Charles de Brosses : unknown

Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : unknown

Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Harriet Beecher Stowe : Old Town Folks

Henry James to Alice James, 31 August 1869, on walking in Switzerland and Italy: "[after crossing Bernadine pass] I ... pursued my way ... to the village of Splugen, where I was glad to halt and rest and where I diverted myself the rest of the day, as I lay, supine, with Mrs. Stowe's Old Town Folks, which I found kicking about, and which struck me under the circumstances as a work of singular and delicious perfection."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : The Times

Henry James to Alice James, 31 August 1869, from Lake Como: "I read yesterday in the Times the news of the defeat of the Harvard crew on the Thames."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Stendhal  : unknown

Henry James to Alice James, 8 November (letter begun 7 November) 1869: "I have of course no company but my own [in Rome], but in the intervals of sightseeing find a rare satisfaction in the long-denied perusal of a book. I have been reading Stendhal -- a capital observer and a good deal of a thinker. He really knows Italy."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry James Sr : "reply to a 'Swedenborgian'"

Henry James to William James, 1 January 1870 (letter begun 27 December 1869): " ... I felt a most refreshing blast of paternity, the other day in reading Father's reply to a 'Swedenborgian,' in a number [of The Nation] that I saw at the bankers."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Henry James Sr : articles on Swedenborg

Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "With your letter [of 22 December 1869] came two Nations, with your Swedenborgian letters, which I had already seen and I think mentioned. I read at the same time in an Atlantic borrowed from the Nortons, your article on the woman business ... your Atlantic article I decidedly liked ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Henry James Sr : "Is Marriage Holy?"

Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "With your letter [of 22 December 1869] came two Nations, with your Swedenborgian letters, which I had already seen and I think mentioned. I read at the same time in an Atlantic borrowed from the Nortons, your article on the woman business ... your Atlantic article I decidedly liked ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Robert Lowell : poem

Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "I read in the last Atlantic Lowell's poem and Howells's Article."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William Dean Howells : "A Pedestrian Tour"

Henry James to Henry James Sr, 14 January 1870: "I read in the last Atlantic Lowell's poem and Howells's Article."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Robert Browning : The Ring and the Book

Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Charles de Brosses : Lettres familieres ecrites d'Italie en 1739 et 1740

Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry Crabbe Robinson : Memoirs

Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Charles-Augustin Saint-Beuve : unknown

Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

 : newspapers

Henry James to Grace Norton, 26 September 1870, regarding process of Italian unification: "[A] reflection I have ... ventured upon: to the purpose that the departure of the capitol from Florence may reconvert it in some degree into the Florence of old and arrest the rank modernization which we used to deplore. But I stand aghast at these crude ratiocinations on a Cambridge basis: especially as on coming to consult a couple of newspapers, I find that there was a goodly amount of shelling and shooting on the occupation of Rome."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

 : newspapers

Henry James to Grace Norton, 26 September 1870: "[At home in Cambridge] I take so much satisfaction in reading the papers that I largely manage to forget that I am doing no work of consequence ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

F. Harrison : article on Bismarck

Henry James, in letter to Charles Eliot Norton, 16 January 1871, mentions "just having read in the Fortnightly for December two articles by your two friends F. Harrison and J. Morley, on Bismark and Byron respectively."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

J. Morley : article on Byron

Henry James, in letter to Charles Eliot Norton, 16 January 1871, mentions "just having read in the Fortnightly for December two articles by your two friends F. Harrison and J. Morley, on Bismark and Byron respectively."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

unknown : various works (dealing with Innsbruck)

Henry James to Grace Norton, 16 July 1871: "I have been looking up Innsbruck in various works at the Athenaeum, so that I may at least spend a few summer hours with you in spirit."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Leslie Stephen : The Playgrounds of Europe

Henry James to Grace Norton, 16 July 1871: "My chronic eastward hankerings and hungerings have been very much quickened of late by the perusal of a little book by our friend Leslie Stephen called The Playgrounds of Europe."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

unknown : "lightish books"

Henry James to Grace Norton, 16 July 1871, describing life at family home: " ... I make a very pleasant life of it. I linger in a darkened room all the forenoon, reading lightish books in my shirt-sleeves ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : timetables

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 9 August 1871: "Every now and then I vaguely scheme to take up my valises and walk ... yet here I am still, taking it all out in reading the time-tables in the Advertiser and wondering which were the deeper joy -- Cape Cod or Mount Mansfield."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

John Forster : Life of Charles Dickens

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 4 February 1872: "You, like all the world here I suppose, have been reading Forster's Dickens. It interested, but disappointed me -- through having too many opinions and 'remarks' and not enough facts and documents."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Joseph Ernest Renan : unknown

" ... [Henry James] would [after 1872] be a close reader of Renan ... whom he later met."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : Le Figaro

Henry James to William James, 28 September 1872 (letter begun 22 September): " ... I read the Figaro every day, religiously, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William James : Review of Hippolyte Taine, "On Intelligence"

Henry James to William James, 28 September 1872 (letter begun 22 September): "I read your Taine and admired, though but imperfectly understood it."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

 : The Atlantic, including articles by Henry James and William Dean Howells

Henry James to William James, 8 January 1873: "Yesterday came an Atlantic with my Bethnal Green notice and its other rare treasures. The B.G.N. doesn't figure very solidly as a 'Lady-article'; it was meant as a notice. But it was as good as the rest, which, save Howells' two pieces, which his genius saves, read rather queerly in Rome."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical, Unknown

  

 : Roman newspapers

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr, 26 January 1873: "I trust indeed [Edward S.] Stokes will be hanged [for murder of James Fisk]. I have just been reading in the Roman newspapers an account of the queer scene on the rendering of the verdict."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

unknown : Italian texts

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr, 17 February 1873: "I read Italian regularly for a short time daily and find it very easy."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Henry James Sr : anecdote/account ("story of Mr Webster")

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr, 24 March 1873: "Thank him [Henry James Sr] ... greatly for his story of Mr Webster. It is admirable material, and excellently presented: I have transcribed it in my notebook with religious care, and think that some day something will come of it."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Sheet

  

William James : "criticism of Middlemarch"

Henry James to William James, 9 April 1873: "Your letter was full of points of great interest. Your criticism on Middlemarch was excellent and I have duly transcribed it into that note-book which it will be a relief to your mind to know I have at last set up."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Letter

  

 : newspaper

Henry James to Sarah Butler Wister, 11 May 1873 (letter begun 9 May): "I have seen some newspaper mention of [Aimee Olympe] Desclee [actress]'s being about to appear with the French company in London."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

 : comments on Henry James's April 1873 North American Review article on Theophile Gautier

Henry James, in letter to William James, 19 May 1873, mentions receiving and reading a "scrap from the Advertiser" (enclosed in letter from William) about his work on Gautier.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

William Dean Howells : A Chance Acquaintance (fifth part)

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 22 June 1873: "I heard from my mother a day or two since that your book is having a sale -- bless it! I haven't yet seen the last part ... Your fifth part I extremely relished ... Kitty [character] is a creation. I have envied you greatly, as I read, the delight of feeling her grow so real and complete ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Thomas Bailey Aldrich : Marjory Daw

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 22 June 1873: "I've just seen Aldrich's Marjory Daw in the Revue looking as natural as if begotten in the Gallic brain. It's a pretty compliment to have translated it ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William Dean Howells : A Chance Acquaintance

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 9 September 1873, regarding Howells's A Chance Acquaintance (just published): "I had great pleasure in reading it over ... [goes on to praise in detail]"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry James : Eugene Pickering

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 9 January 1874, regarding first half of "tale" (Eugene Pickering) being sent in separate cover: "I have been reading it to my brother who pronounces it 'quite brilliant.'"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Unknown

  

unknown : unknown

Henry James to Grace Norton, 14 January 1874, describing daily routine in Florence: "I write more or less in the mornings, walk about in the afternoons, and doze over a book in the evenings."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Thomas Bailey Aldrich : story

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 3 May 1874: "Of Aldrich's tale, I'm sorry to say I've lost the thread, through missing a number of the magazine ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : wedding announcement

Henry James to Sarah Butler Wister, 29 July 1874: "I cut out of the Galignani the other day, to send you, a paragraph on Miss Lowe's marriage, at Venice, and have stupidly lost it."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

unknown : "dullish books"

Henry James to Sarah Butler Wister, 23 January 1875: " ... I have had nothing since my return to town that is worth your hearing of. I have seen a certain number of ordinary people and read some dullish books ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : review of Henry James, A Passionate Pilgrim

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 19 or 26 March 1875: "I read this morning your notice of A Passionate Pilgrim ... If kindness could kill I should be safely out of the reach of ever challenging your ingenuity again."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Alfred Tennyson : unknown

Henry James to E. C. Stedman, 1 September 1875: "My pretentions, in attenpting to talk about Tennyson [in review of Queen Mary], were very modest ... I know him only as we all know him -- by desultory reading ..."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Louise-Florence d'Epinay : Memoirs

Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "Her [Louise-Florence d'Epinay's] Memoirs I read years ago ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Countess Claire-Elisabeth de Remusat : Correspondence (vols 6 and 7)

Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "I have just been reading the two last [sixth and seventh] volumes of Mme de Remusat, just out -- her correspondence with her son -- and finding them interestng ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Anthony Trollope : Autobiography

Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "Yes, I have read Trollope's autobiography and regard it as one of the most curious and amazing books in all literature, for its density, blockishness and general thickness and soddenness."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Ivan Turgenev : Senilia

Henry James to Thomas Seregant Perry, 25 November 1883: "I shall thank you for the Senilia -- though I have been reading them all in German ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Daudet : Sapho

19 June 1884: Henry James writes (in French) to Alphonse Daudet about having read and enjoyed Daudet's Sapho.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Francis Parkman : Montcalm and Wolfe

Henry James to Francis Parkman, 24 August 1884: " ... I cannot hold my hand from telling you ... with what high appreciation and genuine gratitude I have been reading your Wolfe and Montcalm ... I have found the right time to read it only during the last fortnight, and it has fascinated me from the first page to the last."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

James Anthony Froude : Life of Carlyle (concluding instalments)

Henry James to Violet Paget, 21 October 1884: "I have just been reading the new instalment (conclusion) of Froude's Carlyle ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Vernon Lee : Euphorion

Henry James to Violet Paget (Vernon Lee), 21 October 1884: "I have just been reading your Euphorion, and I find it such a prodigious young performance ... that dedications should come to you not from you [Lee had dedicated her novel Miss Brown to James]."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Grace Norton : [unidentified articles]

Henry James to Grace Norton, 3 November 1884: "I have read with enjoyment your various articles ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : article

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 5 December 1884: "I read only last night your paper in the December Longman's in genial rejoinder to my article in the same periodical on Besant's lecture, and the result ... is a friendly desire to send you three words."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Mrs Humphry Ward : Miss Bretherton

Henry James to Mrs Humphry Ward, 9 December 1884: "I read ... [Miss Bretherton] with great interest and pleasure ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry James Sr and William James : The Literary Remains of the Late Henry James

Henry James to William James, 2 January 1885: "Three days ago ... came the two copies of Father's (and your) book ... All I have had time to read as yet is the introduction ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book, Unknown

  

E. L. Godkin : review of The Literary Remains of the Late Henry James

Henry James to William James, 15 February 1885: "You don't tell me whether you had any rejoinder from Godkin to the letter you wrote about the [unfavourable] review [in The Nation] of your book [The Literary Remains of the Late Henry James]. When I had read the article it was absolutely impossible for me not to write to him on my own account ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Vernon Lee : Miss Brown

Henry James to Violet Paget (Vernon Lee), 10 May 1885: "I read Miss B[rown]. with eagerness ... as soon as I received the volumes, and have lately read a large part of them over again."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Vernon Lee : Miss Brown

Henry James to Violet Paget (Vernon Lee), 10 May 1885: "I read Miss B[rown]. with eagerness ... as soon as I received the volumes, and have lately read a large part of them over again."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Emile Zola : Germinal

Henry James to Theodore E. Child, 13 May 1885: " ... the only thing I have read from la-bas [ie France] is the wondrous, and I must say in some ways admirable, Germinal."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Guy de Maupassant : Bel-Ami

Henry James to Theodore E. Child, 30 May 1885: "I ought already to have thanked you for your friendly thought and delicate attention in sending me Maupassant's ineffable novel, which I fell upon and devoured, with the utmost relish and gratitude. It brightened me up, here, for a day or two, amazingly."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : newspapers

Henry James to William James, 24 July 1885: "I read in the papers here of long and intense heat in the US ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

H. Rider Haggard : King Solomon's Mines

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 2 August 1886: "Since I saw you [on Sunday 1 August] I have finished Solomon and read half of 'She' ... It isn't nice that anything so vulgarly brutal should be the thing that succeeds most with the English of today [goes on to complain further of violence and racism in this novel]."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. Rider Haggard : She

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 2 August 1886: "Since I saw you [on Sunday 1 August] I have finished Solomon and read half of 'She' ... It isn't nice that anything so vulgarly brutal should be the thing that succeeds most with the English of today [goes on to complain further of violence and racism in this novel]."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Thomas Carlyle : The Early Letters of Carlyle

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 6 December 1886: "I ought long ago to have thanked you for your very substantial present of Carlyle ... I read the two volumes with exceeding interest ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : The Minister's Charge

Henry James to Wiliam Dean Howells, 7 December 1886: "The last thing I did before leaving London three days and a half ago was to purchase 'Lemuel Barker' ... and though I laid him down twenty-four hours ago I am still full of the sense of how he beguiled and delighted and illumined my way. The beauties of nature passed unheeded and the St. Gotthard tunnel, where I had a reading lamp, was over in a shriek. The book is so awfully good that my perusal of it was one uninterrupted Bravo."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : Punch

Henry James to George du Maurier, 2 March 1887: "I have guessed from one or two stray copies of Punch that have fallen under my eye, that you have been at Brighton ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William Dean Howells : article

Henry James to William James, 5 October 1887 (in letter begun 1 October 1887): "I hadn't seen ... [W. D. Howells's] 'tribute' in the September Harper, but I have just looked it up."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Paul Bourget : Mensonges

23 February 1888: Henry James writes (in French) to Paul Bourget on having read and enjoyed Bourget's Mensonges.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : The Times

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 31 July 1888: "The incorporated society of authors ... gave a dinner the other night to American literati to thank them for praying for international copyright ... I see by this morning's Times that the banqueted boon is further off than ever."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Edmund Gosse : Life of Congreve

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 31 July 1888: "Edmund Gosse has sent me his clever little life of Congreve, just out, and I have read it ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : The Master of Ballantrae

Henry James to Wiliam James, 29 November 1888: " ... I have had in my hands the earlier sheets of the Master of Ballantrae, the new novel ... [R. L. Stevenson] is about to contribute to Scribner, and have been reading them with breathless admiration."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Sheet

  

Arnold Bennett : Price of Love, The

'It ["The Price of Love"] and ?Sinister Street? were, he told me, the only works of fiction he [Henry James] had read since the War broke out.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

G. B. Shaw : Common Sense about the War

'I asked James if he had read Shaw?s Manifesto. He said "I have it here and have made several attempts, but his horrible flippancy revolts me".?

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Vernon Lee : Hauntings

In letter to Violet Paget (Vernon Lee) of 27 April 1890, Henry James thanks her for Hauntings, her book of ghost stories, which he has read and enjoyed: "I possess the eminently psychical stories as well as the material volume."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : A Hazard of New Fortunes vol 1

Henry James to William Dean Howells, from Milan, 17 May 1890: " ... I have been reading the Hazard of New Fortunes ... it has filled me with communicable rapture ... I read the first volume just before I left London -- and the second, which I began the instant I got into the train at Victoria, made me wish immensely that both it and the journey to Bale and thence were formed to last longer."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : A Hazard of New Fortunes vol 2

Henry James to William Dean Howells, from Milan, 17 May 1890: " ... I have been reading the Hazard of New Fortunes ... it has filled me with communicable rapture ... I read the first volume just before I left London -- and the second, which I began the instant I got into the train at Victoria, made me wish immensely that both it and the journey to Bale and thence were formed to last longer."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Guy de Maupassant : Notre Coeur

Henry James to Henrietta Reubell, 7 July 1890: "I have read Notre Coeur but haven't looked at Bourget in the Figaro."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Paul Bourget : Coeur de Femme

In letter of 19 October 1890, Henry James writes (in French) to Urbain Mengin on having read Paul Bourget's new novel Coeur de Femme.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : Ballads

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 12 January 1891: "To-day what I am grateful for is your new ballad-book, which has just reached me by your command. I have had time only to read the first few things ... As I turn the pages I seem to see that they are full of charm ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : The South Seas

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 12 January 1891: "I read with unrestrictive relish the first chapters of your prose volume (kindly vouchsafed me in the little copyright-catching red volume) and I loved 'em and blessed them quite."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : Ballads

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 13 January 1891 (in letter begun 12 January 1891): "Since yesterday I have ... read the ballad book -- with the admiration that I always feel as a helplessly verseless creature ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William James : Principles of Psychology

Henry James to William James, 6 February 1891: " ... I blush to say I haven't had freedom of mind or cerebral freshness ... to tackle -- more than dipping in here and there -- your mighty and magnificent book ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edmund Gosse : Preface to Vol 1 of Ibsen, Works

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 28 April 1891: "I return the Ibsenite volume with many thanks -- especially for the opportunity to read your charming preface which is really ... more interesting than Ibsen himself ... I think you make him out a richer phenomenon than he is. The perusal of the dreary Rosmersholm and even the reperusal of Ghosts has been rather a shock to me -- they have let me down, down."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henrik Ibsen : Rosmersholm

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 28 April 1891: "I return the Ibsenite volume with many thanks -- especially for the opportunity to read your charming preface which is really ... more interesting than Ibsen himself ... I think you make him out a richer phenomenon than he is. The perusal of the dreary Rosmersholm and even the reperusal of Ghosts has been rather a shock to me -- they have let me down, down."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henrik Ibsen : Ghosts

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 28 April 1891: "I return the Ibsenite volume with many thanks -- especially for the opportunity to read your charming preface which is really ... more interesting than Ibsen himself ... I think you make him out a richer phenomenon than he is. The perusal of the dreary Rosmersholm and even the reperusal of Ghosts has been rather a shock to me -- they have let me down, down."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Marcelin Marbot : Memoires

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 15 April 1892: "I send you by this post the magnificent Memoires de Marbot, which should have gone to you sooner by my hand if I had sooner read them ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : Across the Plains

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 15 April 1892: "... I have just read the last page of the sweet collection of some of your happiest lucubrations put forth by the care of dear [Sidney] Colvin."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Paul Bourget : La Terre promise

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 4 July 1892: "Have you read any of ... [Paul Bourget's] novels? If you haven't, don't ... Make an exception, however, for Terre Promise, which is to appear a few months hence, and which I have been reading in proof, here ... It is perhaps 'psychology' gone mad -- but it is an extraordinary production."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Sheet, proofs

  

Robert Louis Stevenson : Island Nights

Henry James to Robert Louis Stevenson, 8 June 1893: "It was only when I came back [from travels abroad] the other day that I could put my hand on the Island Nights, which by your generosity ... I found awaiting me on my table ... I read them as fondly as an infant sucks a stick of candy."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

James Russell Lowell : Letters of James Russell Lowell

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 15 November 1893: "The two beautiful volumes of dear J[ames] R[ussell] L[owell] constitute a gift for the substantial grace of which I lose as little time as possible in affectionately thanking you ... I have read the whole thing with absorption and with a delightful illusion [of Lowell's being present]."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : cutting from Venetian newspaper

Henry James, in 28 January 1894 letter to John Hay, explains how he learned of the manner of the death of Constance Fenimore Woolson in Venice: " ... coming in -- from Cook's office -- with my preparations made [for travel to Venice] -- I found on my table a note from Miss Fletcher (of Venice ...), enclosing a cutting from a Venetian newspaper which gave me the first shocking knowledge of what it was that had happened."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Alice James : The Diary of Alice James

Henry James, in letters to his brother, and sister-in-law, Mr and Mrs William James (25 May 1894; 28 May 1894) discusses his reading of his copy of his sister Alice James's diary.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Meredith : Lord Ormont and His Aminta

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 22 August 1894: " ... I have vowed not to open Lourdes [by Zola] till I shall have closed with a furious bang the unspeakable Lord Ormont, which I have been reading at the maximum rate of ten pages -- ten insufferable and unprofitable pages, a day ... I have finished, at this rate, but the first volume ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edmund Gosse : "paper on Pater"

Henry James, in letter of 13 December 1894 to Edmund Gosse, returns, and discusses reading (with enthusiasm) Gosse's article on Pater.

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

Horatio Brown : Memoir of John Addington Symonds

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 27 December 1894: "I have been reading with the liveliest -- and almost painful -- interest the two volumes on the extraordinary Symonds."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Daudet : Petite Paroisse

Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Daudet : Sapho

Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Daudet : L'Immortel

Henry James writes (in French) on 12 February 1895 to Alphonse Daudet, on having read and enjoyed Daudet's new novel [Petite Paroisse], sent to him by Daudet, and re-read (in each case for the third time) the same author's Sapho and L'Immortel.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : newspapers

Henry James to Henry James Sr., from Paris, 20 December 1875: "I find the political situation here very interesting and devour the newspapers."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

 : Debats

Henry James to Henry James Sr., from Paris, 20 December 1875: "I see both the Debats and the Temps every day ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

 : Temps

Henry James to Henry James Sr., from Paris, 20 December 1875: "I see both the Debats and the Temps every day ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

anon : Review of Henry James, Roderick Hudson

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 3 February 1876: "Why won't you tell me the name of the author of the very charming notice of Roderick Hudson in the last Atlantic, which I saw today at Galignani's?"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

George Eliot : Daniel Deronda

Henry James to Alice James, 22 February, 1876: "Of course you have read Daniel Deronda, and I hope you have enjoyed it a tenth as much as I. It was disappointing, and it brings out strongly the defects of later growth ... But ... I enjoyed it more than anything of hers ... I have ever read. Partly for reading it in this beastly Paris ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Thomas Babington Macaulay : Life

Henry James to Mrs. Henry James Sr., 8 May 1876: "I have been reading Macaulay's Life with extreme interest and entertainment, and admiration of the intellectual robustness of the man."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Eliot : Daniel Deronda

Henry James to Mrs. Henry James Sr., 8 May 1876: "... [Daniel Deronda] disappoints me as it goes on -- the analysing and the sapience -- to say nothing of the tortuosity of the style -- are overdone."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

 : magazines

Henry James to Alice James, 2 March 1877: "It is very late at night and I am in the delightful great drawingroom of the Athenaeum Club where I have been reading all the magazines all the evening, since dinner, in a great deep armchair ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : The Times

Henry James to Mrs John Rollin Tilton, 3 April 1878: " ... even in Rome I could not have done more than piangere over the King [Victor Emmanuel II]'s death, and that I did here, every morning, at breakfast as I read the letters in the Times ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Jacob Burkhardt : The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 17 November 1878: "I have lately been reading Burkhardt's Renaissance and feeling all that very strongly."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : Visitors' books

Henry James to Grace Norton, 4 January 1879: "Half the human race, certainly every one that one has ever heard of, appears sooner or later to have staid at Fryston (I saw this in looking over the 'visitors books' of the house.)"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Unknown

  

 : American newspaper telegrams

Henry James to Grace Norton, 4 January 1879: "I am afraid the ancient savagery of the New England clime has come back to you -- as I see nasty hints of it in the American newspaper telegrams."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

William James : article on "Brute and Human Intellect"

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 18 January 1879: "I have just been reading ... [William James's] two articles -- the Brute and Human Intellect and the one in Mind ... I perused them with great interest, sufficient comprehension, and extreme profit."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William James : article

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 18 January 1879: "I have just been reading ... [William James's] two articles -- the Brute and Human Intellect and the one in Mind ... I perused them with great interest, sufficient comprehension, and extreme profit."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Henry James : Daisy Miller

Henry James to Mrs F. H. Hill, 21 March 1879, on his characterisation of Lord Lambeth in Daisy Miller: "That he says 'I say' rather too many times is very probable (I thought so, quite, myself, in reading over the thing as a book): but that strikes me as a rather venial flaw."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : The Lady of the Aroostook

Henry James to W. D. Howells, 7 April 1879: "The amazingly poor little notice of your novel in the last (at least my last) Nation, makes me feel that I must no longer delay to ... tell you with what high relish and extreme appreciation I have read it. (I wish you had sent it to me ... I have had to go and buy it -- for eight terrible shillings ...)"

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry James Sr : [book]

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 8 April 1879: "I have received father's book from Trubner -- but really to read it I must lay it aside till the summer. I have however dipped into it and found it a great fascination."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Jules Valles : Jacques Vingtras

Henry James to Henry James Sr.,11 October 1879: "I sent Alice the other day, unread, a novel (Jacques Vingtras by Jules Valles, the Communist) because Turgenieff has highly recommended it; but on coming to look into it afterwards I found it so disagreeable that if I had done so before, I shouldn't have sent it."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Henry James : review of Correspondence de C. A. Sainte-Beuve

Henry James to Henry James Sr., 11 January 1880: "I know there are quite too many 'I's' in my Sainte-Beuve -- they shocked me very much when I saw it in print, and they would never have stayed had I seen it in proof."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Wiliam Dean Howells : The Undiscovered Country

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 18 April 1880: "I read your current novel with pleasure, but I don't think the subject fruitful, and I suspect that much of the public will agree with me."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

unknown : [extracted texts]

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 20 July 1880: "This letter is of course addressed equally to father and you, but you must thank him none the less ... for the glowing speeches ... of his of the 1st July, which enclosed the two extracts for Mrs Orr. These I have read with much interest."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

William Dean Howells : The Undiscovered Country

Henry James to Wiliam Dean Howells, 20 July 1880; "I am much obliged to you for the pretty volume of the Undiscovered, which I immediately read with greater comfort and consequence than in the magazine."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : The Times

Henry James to Grace Norton, 26 July 1880: "I read in theTimes that you are roasting alive in the U.S.A. ..."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Charles Eliot Norton : Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages: Venice, Siena, Florence

Henry James to Grace Norton, 7 November 1880: ' ... please tell Charles [Norton] I am to write to him in a day or two to thank him for his own beautiful volume which I have waited to do, only to read it. I am just terminating this pleasure, and he shall hear from me.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Grant Allen : article (?in response to work by William James)

Henry James to Mrs Henry James Sr., 16 March 1881: "I have of course read Grant Allen in the March Atlantic and think it seems prettily enough argued."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Wiliam Dean Howells : Dr. Breen's Practice

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 4 October 1881, on Howells's new story, Dr Breen's Practice: "I won't forego the pleasure of letting you know ... what satisfaction the history of your Doctress gives me. I came back last night from a month in Scotland, and found the October Atlantic on my table; whereupon, though weary with travel I waked early this morning on purpose to read your contribution in bed -- in my little London-dusky back-bedroom, where I can never read at such hours without a pair of candles."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Henry James : Daisy Miller

Leon Edel notes: "In the weeks after his mother's death H[enry]J[ames] converted 'Daisy Miler' into a play, and before sailing read it to Mrs. [Isabella Stewart]Gardner."

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

 : The Academy

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 27 November 1882: "I see in the last Academy that you have never seen the magazine [containing Howells's praise of Henry James; not clear whether Academy or just previously-mentioned Century is meant] and of which I should long since have sent you a copy did I not suppose that the publishers had the civility to do so."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : The Saturday Review

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 27 November 1882: "Of the articles in the Saturday Review and Punam's Monthly [apparently concerning James and Howells's controversial, published praises of each other] I have seen only the former."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William James : letter to Henry James Sr

Henry James to William James, 1 January 1883, on having received William's farewell letter to their father too late for Henry James Sr to see it before he died: "I went out yesterday (Sunday) morning, to the Cambridge cemetary ... and stood beside his grave a long time and read him your letter of farewell -- which I am sure he heard somewhere out of the depths of the still, bright winter air."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Letter

  

G. W. Smalley : article on American novels

Henry James to G. W. Smalley, 21 February 1883: "I have just been reading in the Tribune your letter of Jan. 25, in which you devote a few lines to the silly article in the Quarterly on American Novels, etc [goes on to correct points in this]."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

George Pellew : dissertation on Jane Austen's novels

Henry James to George Pellew, 23 June 1883: 'I found your thin red book [on Jane Austen] on my table when I came in late last night. I read it this morning before I left my pillow -- read it with much entertainment and profit.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

unknown : review of Barrett Wendell's critical study of Shakespeare

'[Barrett Wendell] has [...] sent me his new book on Shakespeare, in which I have been (I had read some laudatory notice of it) much disappointed. Besides being critically very thin and even common, it is surely not written as the Prof. of "English" at Harvard should write.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Barrett Wendell : critical study of Shakespeare

'[Barrett Wendell] has [...] sent me his new book on Shakespeare, in which I have been (I had read some laudatory notice of it) much disappointed. Besides being critically very thin and even common, it is surely not written as the Prof. of "English" at Harvard should write.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

 : The Times

Henry James to Francis Boott, 11 October 1895: 'This is but a p.s. of three lines to the letter I posted to you yesterday; after doing which I became aware that I hadn't alluded to poor W. W. Story's death, the news of which I had just seen in The Times.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Edward Holton James : two stories

Henry James to Edward Holton James, 15 February 1896: 'For the two stories in the "Harvard Magazine" I am [...] gratefully indebted to you. I have read them with a searching of spirit (to begin with) inevitable to one who has in a manner set an example and who sees it (in his afternoon of life) inexorably and fatally followed.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Pierre Louys : Aphrodite: moeurs antiques

Henry James, in 25 July 1896 letter to Edmund Gosse, praises Pierre Louys' novel "Aphrodite: moeurs antiques", which he has read in a copy apparently borrowed from Gosse.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Emile Zola : Rome

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 25 July 1896: '"Rome" is of a [italics] lourdeur [end italics] -- as I read it here at the rate of ten pages a day -- under which even my little rock-built terrace groans.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Daudet : article on death of Edmond de Goncourt

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 28 August 1896: 'The only thing that befell me [on recent week in London, from 15 August] was that I dined one night at the Savoy with F. Ortmans and the P. Bourgets [...] The only other thing I did was to read in the "Revue de Paris" of the 15th August the wonderful article of A. Daudet on Goncourt's death [...]'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Maurice Barres : Du Sang, de la Volupte et de la Mort

Henry James writes (in French) to Maurice Barres, in praise of "Du Sang, de la Volupte et de la Mort", a copy of which had been sent to him, 7 September 1896.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edward Fitzgerald : Letters

In postscript to his letter of 3 July 1897 to Ellen Temple Hunter, Henry James tells anecdote about 'yesterday afternoon', in which, after having been 'reading the delightful letters of [...] Edward Fitzgerald ("Omar Khayyam") and, just finishing a story in one of them about his relations with a boatman of Saxmundham,' he went for a walk along the Bournemouth coast where he met, and got into conversation with, a 'sea-faring man' who turned out to have come from Saxmundham, and whose brother had been the boatman Fitzgerald had written of (he goes on to mention the further coincidence of coming home to find a letter from Hunter dated from Saxmundham).

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Arthur Christopher Benson : Diary

Henry James thanks Arthur Christopher Benson for letting him borrow and read his 'Diary', in letter of 1 October 1897: 'I have read, of course, every word -- and I think I have had real inspirations in the way of making you out.'

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

 : The Times

Henry James to William James, 20 April 1898: 'I scarcely know what the newpapers say [about the Spanish-American war] -- beyond the "Times", which I look at all for [George W.] Smalley's cables'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Antonio de Navarro : MS story

Henry James to Antonio de Navarro, 15 June 1898: 'Well, my dear Tony, I have read your ms. [...] It is Hans Andersenesque -- but no editor of an actual London magazine would look at a Hans Andersen tale to-day.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Pierre Louys : La Femme et le Pantin

Henry James writes (in French) in letter of 26 September 1898 to Paul Bourget of reading Pierre Louys' novel "La Femme et le Pantin", at Bourget's recommendation.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Matilda Serao : [unidentified novel]

Henry James writes (in French) in letter of 26 September 1898 to Paul Bourget of having read and admired a novel by Matilda Serao, in a copy apparently sent to him by Bourget's wife.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

E.M. De Vogüé  : Jean d'Agreve

Henry James to Minnie Bourget, 8 April 1899: 'I have been reading "Jean d'Agreve" with a mixture of recognitions and reserves'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

J. W. Mackail : The Life of William Morris

Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 28 November 1899 (in letter begun 24 November 1899): 'I gather [...] that you have read Mackail's Morris [...] I felt much moved, after reading the book, to try to write [...] something positively vivid about it; but we are in a moment of such excruciating vulgarity that nothing worth doing about anything or anyone seems to be wanted or welcomed anywhere.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Mrs Everard Cotes : His Honour and a Lady

Henry James to Mrs Everard Cotes, 26 January 1900, on (published) novel she has written and sent to him: 'Your book is extraordinarily keen and delicate and able [...] One or two things my acute critical intelligence murmured to me as I read. I think your drama lacks a little, [italics] line [end italics] [...] on which to string the pearls of detail.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : The Time Machine

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 29 January 1900: 'It was very graceful of you to send me your book -- I mean the particular masterpiece entitled "The Time Machine", after I had so ungracefully sought it at your hands [...] You are very magnificent [...] I re-write you, much, as I read -- which is the highest tribute my damned impertinence can pay an author.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Katherine Prescott Wormeley : MS notes to Balzac's Letters

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Katherine Prescott Wormeley : Preface [on Balzac]

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: proof

  

Honore de Balzac : Un Roman d'Amour

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Lettres a l'Etrangere

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Paul Bourget : Drames de Famille

Henry James to Paul Bourget, 15 May 1900, thanking him for copy of his collection of tales, Drames de Famille: 'I have read the whole thing with the intensity [italics] que je mets toujours a vous lire [end italics]'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Santayana : Interpretations of Poetry and Religion

Henry James to Mrs William James, 22 May 1900: 'Thank you [...] for telling me of Santayana's book (P. and R.) which has come and which I find of an irresistible distraction.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Ford Madox Hueffer : Poems for Pictures

Henry James to Ford Madox Hueffer, 23 May 1900, thanking him for copy of his newly published volume of verse: 'I think your doubt about the verses misplaced and unjustified -- all those I have yet read seeming to me to hold their own very firmly indeed. Those I have read -- and re-read -- are the little rustic lays -- several of which I think admirable'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : Ragged Lady

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 29 June 1900: '[...] I've been, of late, reading you again as continuously as possible [...] the result of "Ragged Lady", the "Silver Journey", the "Pursuit of the Piano" and two or three other things (none wrested from your inexorable hand, but paid for from scant earnings) has been, ever so many times over, an impulse of reaction, of an intensely cordial sort'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : Their Silver Wedding Journey

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 29 June 1900: '[...] I've been, of late, reading you again as continuously as possible [...] the result of "Ragged Lady", the "Silver Journey", the "Pursuit of the Piano" and two or three other things (none wrested from your inexorable hand, but paid for from scant earnings) has been, ever so many times over, an impulse of reaction, of an intensely cordial sort'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Dean Howells : 'Pursuit of the Piano' (short story)

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 29 June 1900: '[...] I've been, of late, reading you again as continuously as possible [...] the result of "Ragged Lady", the "Silver Journey", the "Pursuit of the Piano" and two or three other things (none wrested from your inexorable hand, but paid for from scant earnings) has been, ever so many times over, an impulse of reaction, of an intensely cordial sort'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

W. Morton Fullerton : article

Henry James to W. Morton Fullerton, 9 August 1901: 'You speak of your "Cornhill" article as one always speaks and feels about one's potboilers; but that doesn't prevent me from having felt as I read it as if I were seated with you before that little [italics] cafe-glacier [end italics] that has the summer shade [...] and you were telling me, happily passive, things out of your abundance, and I could put my hand on your shoulder and wish the occasion would last.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William Dean Howells : A Pair of Patient Lovers

Henry James to William Dean Howells, 10 August 1901: 'Ever since receiving and reading your elegant volume of short tales ["A Pair of Patient Lovers"]-- the arrival of which from you was affecting and delightful to me -- I've meant to write to you [...] I read your book with joy [...] The thing that most took me was that entitled "A Difficult Case"'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Sarah Orne Jewett : The Tory Lover

Henry James to Sarah Orne Jewett, 5 October 1901: 'Let me not [...] delay to thank you for your charming and generous present of "The Tory Lover" [her historical novel]. He has been but three or four days in the house, yet I have given him an earnest, a pensive, a liberal -- yes, a benevolent attention [goes on to offer detailed criticisms]'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Rudyard Kipling : Kim

Henry James to Rudyard Kipling, 30 October 1901: 'I can't lay down "Kim" without wanting much to write to you [...] I overflow, I beg you to believe, with "Kim", and I rejoice in such a saturation, such a splendid dose of you.[goes on to praise novel further]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Graham Balfour : Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

Henry James to Graham Balfour, 15 November 1901: 'Into my rural backwater books float a bit slowly and circuitously, so that it is only this evening that I have, after delayed acquisition, finished with emotion, your two admirable volumes [a biography of R. L. Stevenson].'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Owen Wister : The Virginian

Henry James to Owen Wister, 7 August 1902: 'I have been reading "The Virginian" and I am moved to write to you. You didn't send him to me -- you never send me anything; as to which, heaven knows, you're not obliged [...] I mention the matter only from the sense of my having felt, as I read, how the sentiment of the thing would have deepened for me if I [italics] had [end italics] had it from your hands.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edith Wharton : The Valley of Decision

Henry James, in letter to Edith Wharton of 17 August 1902, writes to her of 'lately having read "The Valley of Decision", read it with such high appreciation and received so deep an impression from it that I can scarce tell you why, all these weeks, I have waited for any other pretext to write.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

unknown : article on Zola

Henry James to W. Morton Fullerton, 7 November 1902: 'Your two little periodicals have just come in [...] I immediately read the Zola in it [sic] [...] because I promised the ingenuous "Atlantic" to write a paper on him.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard : The Morgesons

Henry James to Sarah Butler Wister, 21 December 1902: ' [...] as for the "Morgesons" and "Two Men," I read them long years ago (the first in queer green paper covers) when they originally appeared [...] I seem to remember even having "noticed" the second (probably in the "Nation" and very badly).'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard : Two Men

Henry James to Sarah Butler Wister, 21 December 1902: ' [...] as for the "Morgesons" and "Two Men," I read them long years ago (the first in queer green paper covers) when they originally appeared [...] I seem to remember even having "noticed" the second (probably in the "Nation" and very badly).'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Urbain Mengin : Italie des Romantiques

Henry James to Urbain Mengin, 1 January 1903: 'Your great handsome wide-margined large-printed, yellow-covered "Italie des Romantiques" came to me safely more months ago than I have the courage to confess to in round numbers [...] I have in any case attentively and appreciatively read it; finding in it much entertaining matter very succinctly and agreeably presented'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Howard Sturgis : Belchamber

Henry James to Howard Sturgis, 8 November 1903: 'I send you back the blooming proofs [of Sturgis's novel "Belchamber"] with many thanks and with no marks or comments at all [goes on to offer criticisms].'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: In proof

  

Howard Sturgis : A Sketch from Memory

Henry James to Howard Sturgis, 8 November 1903: 'I send you back the blooming proofs [of Sturgis's novel "Belchamber"] with many thanks and with no marks or comments at all [goes on to offer criticisms] [...] I send you back also "Temple Bar", in which I have found your paper a moving and charming thing'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Viscount Garnet Wolseley : The Story of a Soldier's Life

Henry James to Viscount Garnet Wolseley, 7 December 1903: 'I feel I must absolutely not have passed these several last evenings in your so interesting and vivid society without thanking you almost as much as if you had personally given me the delightful hours or held me there with your voice. I have read your two volumes [The Story of a Soldier's Life] from covers to covers and parted from you with a positive pang.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson : [book on Greek history]

Henry James to Grace Norton, 13 December 1903: 'Lowes Dickinson, whom you [...] mention [in her most recent letter to James], I don't know [...] But I've read a charming little Greek history-book from his hand'.

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Mankind in the Making

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 24 January 1904: 'I've [italics] wanted [end italics], day after day, to write -- wanted to quite intensely from the day I read your two munificently-conferred books [...] "M[ankind] in the M[aking]" thrills and transports me [...] it becomes, as one reads, inordinately obective, heroic, sympathetic, D'Artagnanesque. Of the little Tales in t'other book ["Twelve Stories and a Dream"] I read one every night regularly, after going to bed -- they had only the defect of hurrying me prematurely to my couch.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Twelve Stories and a Dream

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 24 January 1904: 'I've [italics] wanted [end italics], day after day, to write -- wanted to quite intensely from the day I read your two munificently-conferred books [...] "M[ankind] in the M[aking]" thrills and transports me [...] it becomes, as one reads, inordinately obective, heroic, sympathetic, D'Artagnanesque. 'Of the little Tales in t'other book ["Twelve Stories and a Dream"] I read one every night regularly, after going to bed -- they had only the defect of hurrying me prematurely to my couch.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edith Wharton : The House of Mirth (second instalment)

Henry James to Edith Wharton, 8 February 1905: '[...] your good letter has found me on the very point of writing to you [...] For I have read the February morsel of "The House of Mirth", with such a sense of its compact fulness, vivid picture and "sustained interest" as to make me really wish to celebrate the emotion.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Edith Wharton : The House of Mirth (final instalment)

Henry James to Edith Wharton, 8 November 1905, in praise of the conclusion to "The House of Mirth": 'Half an hour ago, or less, I laid down the November "Scribner" [...] Let me tell you at once that I very much admire that fiction'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

H. G. Wells : A Modern Utopia

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 19 November 1905, in praise of two works recently sent by Wells: 'I found your first munificence here on returning [from tour of USA] [...] toward the end of July [...] I recognized [...] that the Utopia ["A Modern Utopia" was a book I should desire to read only in the right conditions of [italics] coming [end italics] to it [...] I "came to it" only a short time since [...] and achieved a complete saturation; after which [...] I found Kipps [...] awaiting me -- and from his so different but still so utterly coercive embrace I have just emerged.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Kipps

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 19 November 1905, in praise of two works recently sent by Wells: 'I found your first munificence here on returning [from tour of USA] [...] toward the end of July [...] I recognized [...] that the Utopia ["A Modern Utopia" was a book I should desire to read only in the right conditions of [italics] coming [end italics] to it [...] I "came to it" only a short time since [...] and achieved a complete saturation; after which [...] I found Kipps [...] awaiting me -- and from his so different but still so utterly coercive embrace I have just emerged.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William James : [Unidentified recently published writings]

Henry James to William James, 23 November 1905: 'I can read [italics]you[end italics] with rapture -- having three weeks ago spent three or four days with Manton Marble at Brighton and found in his hands ever so many of your recent papers and discourses, which having margins of mornings in my room, through both breakfasting and lunching there [...] I found time to read several of'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Paul Bourget : Les Deux Soeurs

Henry James to Paul Bourget 21 December 1905, thanking him for copy of "Les Deux Soeurs": 'This volume I read with immediate attention and with the highest appreciation'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Ralph Gordon Noel King, second Earl of Lovelace : Astarte

Henry James to the Earl of Lovelace, 14 January 1906: 'I left home at Christmas for a few weeks' stay, which became a fortnight's absence, and, on my return a week ago, found the very handsome, remarkable and interesting volume ["Astarte", Lovelace's account of his grandmother's marriage to Byron] which you had been so good as to send me. I wished to take real possession of it before having the pleasure of thanking you, and have now done so by a very attentive, and in fact fascinated perusal.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

various : Byron family papers

Henry James to the Earl of Lovelace, 14 January 1906, thanking him for a copy of "Astarte", Lovelace's account of his grandparents Lord and Lady Byron's marriage: 'I am greatly touched by your friendly remembrance of my possible feeling for the whole matter, and of your own good act, perhaps, of a few years ago -- the to me ever memorable evening when, at Wentworth House, you allowed me to look at some of the documents you have made use of in "Astarte."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Joseph Conrad : The Mirror of the Sea

Henry James, in 1 November 1906 letter to Joseph Conrad, writes of having just read and admired "The Mirror of the Sea".

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : The Future in America

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 8 November 1906: 'I came back last night from five days in London to find your so generously-given "America," and I have done nothing today but thrill and squirm with it and vibrate to it almost feverishly and weep over it almost profusely'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Paul Bourget : Etudes et portraits

Henry James writes to Paul Bourget (in French) in a letter of 19 December 1906, of having enjoyed his "Etudes et Portraits", in an inscribed copy sent to him a few weeks beforehand by Bourget.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Paul Bourget : article on Ferdinand Brunetiere

Henry James writes to Paul Bourget (in French) in a letter of 19 December 1906, of having read his article on Ferdinand Brunetiere in "Temps"a few days beforehand.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward : The Whole Family (chapter)

Henry James to Elizabeth Jordan, 3 May 1907: 'you sent me Mrs. Phelps Ward's contribution to the "Whole Family" -- which I began to read the other day, but which immediately affeted me as subjected to so pitiless an ordeal in the searching artistic light and amid the intellectual and literary associations of Paris that I [...] laid it away to await resuscitation of it in a medium in which I shall be able to surround my perusal of it with more precautions.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

various : [unidentified book of fairy stories]

Henry James to Elizabeth Jordan, 3 May 1907, in response to her question about his favourite fairy stories when a child (part of research for her 1907 book on the favourite fairy stories of "Representative Men and Women"): 'I [...] thrilled over the nursery fire, over a fat little Boys' -- or perhaps Children's Own Book which contained all the "regular" fairy tales [...] amid which I recall "Hop o' my Thumb"'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Clare Benedict : "Roderick Eaton's Children"

Henry James to Clare Benedict, 13 September 1907: 'Returning to this place [Lamb House, Rye] early in July after a long absence abroad [...] I found the March "Atlantic" in a great heap of waiting postal matter on my table [...] I addressed myself to your delicate discreet little story [goes on to praise it]'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William James : Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

Henry James to William James, 17 October 1907: 'Why the devil I didn't write to you after reading your "Pragmatism" [...] I can't now explain save by the very fact of the spell itself (of interest and enthralment) that the book cast upon me'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William James : journal articles on psychology

Henry James to William James, 17 October 1907: 'Why the devil I didn't write to you after reading your "Pragmatism" [...] I can't now explain save by the very fact of the spell itself (of interest and enthralment) that the book cast upon me [...] I have been absorbing a number more of your followings-up of the matter in the American (Journal of Psychology[?]) which your devouring devotee Manton Marble of Brighton [...] plied'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Edith Wharton : The Fruit of the Tree

Henry James to Edith Wharton, 24 November 1907: 'I have read "The Fruit [of the Tree", in copy sent by Wharton][...] with acute appreciation -- the liveliest admiration and sympathy.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Hugh Walpole : Maradick at Forty

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 13 May 1910: 'I "read," in a manner, "Maradick" -- [...] Your book has a great sense and love of life -- but seems to me very nearly as irreflectively juvenile as the Trojans [ie "The Trojan Horse" (1909), Walpole's previous (and first) novel] [...] Also the whole thing is a monument to the abuse of voluminous dialogue [...] And yet it's all so loveable'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Hugh Walpole : Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 15 April 1911: 'I congratulate you ever so gladly on Mr. Perrin -- I think the book represents a very marked advance upon its predecessors [...] To appreciate is to appropriate, and it is only by criticism that I can make a thing in which I find myself interested at all [italics]my own[end italics]. [...] I really and very charmedly made your book very [italics]much[end italics] my own.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Josiah Royce : Phi Beta address on the work and influence of William James

Henry James to Professor Josiah Royce, 30 June 1911: 'I snatch too hurried a moment to express to you my great appreciation of your so generous and luminous treatment of my dear Brother's work and influence in your Phi Beta address yesterday -- read by me in last night's "Transcript".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Hugh Walpole : review of Henry James, The Outcry

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 13 October 1911: 'I have just been reading the "Standard" [containing Walpole's review of James's "The Outcry"] at breakfast, and I am touched, I am [italics]melted[end italics], by the charming gallantry and magnanimity of it'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

unknown : "the Green Book"

Henry James to Mrs W. K. Clifford, 18 May 1912: 'I am reading the Green Book in bits -- as it were -- the only way in which I [italics]can[end italics] read (or at least disread) the contemporary novel'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Mrs W. K. Clifford : The Getting Well of Dorothy

Henry James to Mrs W. K. Clifford, 18 May 1912: 'I find G. W. [Mrs Clifford's recent novel] very brisk and alive, but I [italics]have[end italics] to take it in pieces, and so have only reached the middle.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Arnold Bennett : articles

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 19 May 1912: 'A. Benett [sic] I've never to this day beheld -- and certain [italics]American[end italics] papers of his in "Harper", of an inordinate platitude of journalistic cheapness, have in truth rather curtailed me in such a disposition.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Edmund Gosse : life of Swinburne

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, whilst suffering from illness, 10 October 1912: 'I receive with pleasure the small Swinburne [biographical essay by Gosse, originally intended for the DNB] [...] the perusal of which lubricated yesterday two or three rough hours.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

George Meredith : Letters

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 10 October 1912: 'I have received within a day or two dear old George Meredith's "Letters"; and, though I haven't been able yet very much to go into them, I catch their emanation of something so admirable, and, on the whole, so baffled and so tragic. We must have some more talk of them -- and also of Wells's book ["Marriage"], with which I am however having much difficulty. I am not so much struck with its hardness as with its weakness and looseness, the utter going by the board of any real self respect of composition and expression.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Marriage

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 10 October 1912: 'I have received within a day or two dear old George Meredith's "Letters"; and, though I haven't been able yet very much to go into them, I catch their emanation of something so admirable, and, on the whole, so baffled and so tragic. We must have some more talk of them -- and also of Wells's book ["Marriage"], with which I am however having much difficulty. I am not so much struck with its hardness as with its weakness and looseness, the utter going by the board of any real self respect of composition and expression.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Marriage

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 18 October 1912, whilst suffering from shingles: 'you may not have forgotten that you kindly sent me "Marriage" [...] which I've been able to give myself to at my less ravaged and afflicted hours. I have read you, as I always read you [...] with a complete abdication of all those "principles of criticism" [...] which I roam, which I totter, through the pages of others attended in some dim degree by the fond yet feeble theory of, but which I shake off, as I advance under your spell, with the most cynical inconsistency.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edmund Gosse : Portraits and Sketches

Henry James to Edmund Gosse, 9 November 1912: 'I received longer ago than I quite lke to give chapter and verse for your so-vividly interesting volume of literary "Portraits" [...] I read your book, with lively "reactions," within the first week of its arrival [goes on to praise it in detail]'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Andrew Lang : The Maid of France, being the Story of the Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc

Henry James, in letter to Edmund Gosse, 9 November 1912, mentions 'having recently read [...] [Andrew Lang's] (in two or three respects so able) Joan of Arc, or Maid of France, and turned over his just-published (I think posthumous) compendium of "English Literature"'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Andrew Lang : compendium of English literature

Henry James, in letter to Edmund Gosse, 9 November 1912, mentions 'having recently read [...] [Andrew Lang's] (in two or three respects so able) Joan of Arc, or Maid of France, and turned over his just-published (I think posthumous) compendium of "English Literature" [...] The extraordinary inexpensiveness and childishness and impertinence of this latter gave to my sense the measure of a whole side of Lang [goes on to attack Lang's "Scotch provincialism"]'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Edith Wharton : The Reef: A Novel

Henry James to Edith Wharton, 4 December 1912, whilst suffering from shingles: 'Your beautiful Book ["The Reef: A Novel"] has been my portion these several days [...] it has been a real lift to read you and taste you and ponder you: the experience has literally worked [...] in a medicating sense that neither my local nor my London Doctor [...] shall have come within miles and miles of'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Gilbert Cannan : Round the Corner

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 11 April 1913: 'I have [...] read -- with difficulty -- another Young Fiction of the day [...] Gilbert Cannan's "Round the Corner".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Leo Tolstoy : War and Peace

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 21 August 1913: 'I have been reading over Tolstoi's interminable "Peace and War" [sic] and am struck by the fact that I now protest as much as I admire.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : The Passionate Friends

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 21 September 1913, thanking him for a copy of his new novel, "The Passionate Friends": 'I am too impatient to let you know [italics]how[end italics] wonderful I find this last [...] I bare my head before [...] the high immensity [...] which has made me absorb the so full-bodied thing in deep and prolonged gustatory draughts.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Leo Tolstoy : War and Peace

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 14 October 1913: 'I have just been re-reading over Tolstoi'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Aubrey Beardsley : The Last Letters of Aubrey Beardsley

Henry James to Andre Raffalovich, 7 November 1913: 'I thank you very kindly indeed for the volume of [Aubrey] Beardsley's letters, by which I have been greatly touched [...] the personal spirit in him, the beauty in nature, is disclosed to me by your letters as wonderful and [...] deeply pathetic and interesting.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Compton Mackenzie : Sinister Street (vol.1)

Henry James to Compton Mackenzie, 21 January 1914: 'When I wrote to [James B.] Pinker I had only read "S[inister].S[treet]"., but I have now taken "Carnival" in persistent short draughts -- which is how I took "S[inister].S[treet]". and is how I take anything I take at all'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Compton Mackenzie : Carnival

Henry James to Compton Mackenzie, 21 January 1914: 'When I wrote to [James B.] Pinker I had only read "S[inister].S[treet]"., but I have now taken "Carnival" in persistent short draughts -- which is how I took "S[inister].S[treet]". and is how I take anything I take at all'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

William Roughead : chronicle of trial of Mary Blandy

Henry James to William Roughead, 29 January 1914:'I devoured the tender Mary Blandy [subject of one of Roughead's chronicles of murder trials] in a single feast [...] You tell the story with excellent art and animation'.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      

  

Joseph Conrad : Chance

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 5 February 1914: 'I have the volume [one by Walpole] (since last night), and shall attack it as soon as I finish Conrad's "Chance". I have so nearly done this that I shall probably proceed tonight, in bed, to Walpole's Certainty ["The Duchess of Wrexe"].''

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Gabriele D'Annunzio : unknown

Henry James, in letter of 19 August 1914, thanks Edith Wharton for 'D'Annunzio's frenchified ode', which he has apparently read and admired.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Compton Mackenzie : Sinister Street (vol 2)

Henry James, in letter of 21 November 1914 to Hugh Walpole, writes of his bemusement at the second volume of Compton Mackenzie's "Sinister Street": 'I don't know what it means [...] the thing affects me on the whole as a mere wide waste.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : Sir Isaac Harman's Wife

Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 21 November 1914: '[H. G.] Wells has published a mere flat tiresomeness ("Sir Isaac Harman's Wife"); at least I had, for the first time with anything of Wells's, simply to let it slide.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

H. G. Wells : critique of George Bernard Shaw, Common Sense about the War

Henry James to James B. Pinker, 6 January 1915: 'be thanked [...] for your conveyance to me of Arnold Bennett's healthy article (which I had seen and much relished, though I do myself deprecate everywhere the laying on of any rose-colour too thick), and of Wells's admirable scarification, as I hold it, of G[eorge].B[ernard].S[haw]. -- in which I find myself ready to back himn up to the hilt.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Arnold Bennett : critique of George Bernard Shaw, Common Sense about the War

Henry James to James B. Pinker, 6 January 1915: 'be thanked [...] for your conveyance to me of Arnold Bennett's healthy article (which I had seen and much relished, though I do myself deprecate everywhere the laying on of any rose-colour too thick), and of Wells's admirable scarification, as I hold it, of G[eorge].B[ernard].S[haw]. -- in which I find myself ready to back himn up to the hilt.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : The Times

Henry James to James B. Pinker, 6 January 1915: 'I have had to settle down [...] to looking at almost nothing but "The Times" and "The Morning Post"; the latter for its comparative avoidance of cheap optimisms; whch I hate to be too much fed with.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

 : The Morning Post

Henry James to James B. Pinker, 6 January 1915: 'I have had to settle down [...] to looking at almost nothing but "The Times" and "The Morning Post"; the latter for its comparative avoidance of cheap optimisms; whch I hate to be too much fed with.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Newspaper

  

Rupert Brooke : sonnets

Henry James to Edward Marsh, 28 March 1915: 'I take it very kindly indeed of you to have found thought and time to send me the publication with the five brave sonnets [by Rupert Brooke]. The circumstances that have conduced to them [...] have caused me to read them with an emotion that somehow precludes the critical measure [...] and makes me just want [...] to be moved by them and to "like" and admire them [...] this evening, alone by my lamp, I have been reading them over and over to myself aloud'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Unknown

  

Margot Asquith : Diary

Henry James to Margot Asquith, 9 April 1915, thanking her for sending him her diary to read ('a few days ago'): 'I have absorbed every word of every page with the liveliest appreciation [...] I have read the thing intimately, and I take off my hat to you as the Balzac of diarists.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Manuscript: Codex

  

H. G. Wells : Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump

Henry James to H. G. Wells, 6 July 1915: 'I was given yesterday at a club your volume "Boon, etc.", from a loose leaf in which I learn that you kindly sent it me [...] I have just been reading, to acknowledge it intelligently, a considerable number of its pages -- though not all; for, to be perfectly frank, I have been in that respect beaten for the first time -- or rather for the first time but one -- by a book of yours'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

James Anthony Froude : Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London, 1

'The greatest pleasure I have lately had has been the perusal of the 2 last volumes of Froude's Carlyle.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Mary Augusta Ward : Bessie Costrell

'[letter from Henry James to Mrs Ward] I think the tale very straightforward and powerful - very direct and vivid, full of the real and the [italics] juste [end italics]. I like your unelambicated rustics - they are a tremendous rest after Hardy's - and the infallibility of your feeling for village life. Likewise I heartily hope you will labour in this field and farm again. [italics] But [end italics] I won't pretend to agree with one or two declarations that have been wafted to me to the effect that this little tale is the best thing you've done". It has even been murmured to me that [italics] you [end italics] think so. This I don't believe, and at any rate I find, for myself, your best in your deallings with [italics] data [end italics] less simple, on a plan less simple.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

[n/a] : [newspaper]

Witness statement in trial for theft: Henry Theodore James: 'I did not go before the Magistrate on this matter—I saw in the newspaper that the prisoner was before the Magistrate—he did not call me as a witness there'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Theodore James      Print: Newspaper

 

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