The Selected Letters of Henry James

Legend has tended to preserve Henry James as "The Master" that Joseph Conrad called him, a rather long-winded Olympian given to great utterances on the art of fiction and the writing of profound psychological studies. A new, more human James emerges from this brilliant selection of letters. The real-life figure here revealed is more terse, and even astringent, a professional writer who always knew what he was about, an eager observer of life, a man who delighted in meeting people and who made an art of friendship, but who did not hesitate to descend into the market place of letters and get the best possible price for his wares. Leon Edel has designed this selection, chosen from among the seven thousand letters that have survived, to show the kinds of letters James wrote - to his family, his contemporaries, to would-be writers, and letters into which he injected irony and words designed not to hurt, but nevertheless to tell the truth. Here are letters to Conrad, Wells, Galsworthy, Henry Adams, Howells, Edith Wharton, Fanny Kemble - to great Victorians as well as to those who bridged that era and ours. Dr. Edel has contributed a vivid and illuminating introduction.