Henry James PREFACES: in his own words about his writings

Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)


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This is a collection of Prefaces written by Henry James exclusively for the "New York Edition" of "The Novels and Tales of Henry James."

Under one cover we have the inside insights to his multiple collection of works in his own words.

Included here are discussions about:

Preface I. Roderick Hudson
(New York Edition, 1)

Preface II. The American
(New York Edition, 2)

Preface III. The Portrait Of A Lady
(New York Edition, 3, 4)

Preface IV. The Princess Casamassima
(New York Edition, 5,6)

Preface V. The Tragic Muse
(New York Edition, 7,8)

Preface VI. The Awkward Age
(New York Edition, 9)

Preface VII. The Spoils of Poynton;
A London Life; The Chaperon
(New York Edition, 10)

Preface VIII. What Maisie Knew;
In The Cage; The Pupil
(New York Edition, 11)

Preface IX. The Aspern Papers; The Turn of the Screw;
The Liar; The Two Faces.
(New York Edition, 12)

Preface X. The Reverberator; Madame de Mauves;
A Passionate Pilgrim; The Madonna of the Future; Louisa Pallant
(New York Edition, 13)

Preface XI. Lady Barbarina; The Siege of London; An International Episode;
The Pension Beaurepas; A Bundle of Letters; The Point of View
(New York Edition, 14)

Preface XII. The Lesson of the Master; The Death of the Lion;
The Next Time; The Figure in the Carpet; The Coxon Fund
(New York Edition, 15)

Preface XIII. The Author of Beltraffio; The Middle Years; Greville Fane;
Broken Wings; The Tree of Knowledge; The Abasement of the Northmores;
The Great Good Place; Four Meetings; Paste; Europe;
Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie; Fordham Castle
(New York Edition, 16)

Preface XIV. The Altar of the Dead; The Beast in the Jungle; The Birthplace;
The Private Life; Owen Wingrave; The Friends of the Friends;
Sir Edmund Orme; The Real Right Thing; The Jolly Corner; Julia Bride
(New York Edition, 17)

Preface XV. Daisy Miller; Pandora; The Patagonia; The Marriages;
The Real Thing; Brooksmith; The Beldonald Holbein;
The Story in It; Flickerbridge; Mrs. Medwin
(New York Edition, 18)

Preface XVI. The Wings of the Dove
(New York Edition, 19, 20)

Preface XVII. The Ambassadors
(New York Edition, 21, 22)

Preface XVIII. The Golden Bowl
(New York Edition, 23, 24)

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An excerpt:

PREFACE XVI.
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
The Wings of the Dove, published in 1902, represents to my memory a very old – if I shouldn’t perhaps rather say a very young – motive; I can scarce remember the time when the situation on which this long-drawn fiction mainly rests was not vividly present to me. The idea, reduced to its essence, is that of a young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured of the world; aware moreover of the condemnation and passionately desiring to ‘put in’ before extinction as many of the finer vibrations as possible, and so achieve, however briefly and brokenly, the sense of having lived. Long had I turned it over, standing off from it, yet coming back to it; convinced of what might be done with it, yet seeing the theme as formidable. The image so figured would be, at best, but half the matter; the rest would be all the picture of the struggle involved, the adventure brought about, the gain recorded or the loss incurred, the precious experience somehow compassed. These things, I had from the first felt, would require much working-out; that indeed was the case with most things worth working at all; yet there are subjects and subjects, and this one seemed particularly to bristle. It was formed, I judged, to make the wary adventurer walk round and round it – it had in fact a charm that invited and mystified alike that attention; not being somehow what one thought of as a ‘frank’ subject, after the fashion of some, with its elements well in view and its whole character in its face. It stood there with secrets and compartments, with possible treacheries and traps; it might have a great deal to give, but would probably ask for equal services in return, and would collect this debt to the last shilling. It involved, to begin with, the placing in the strongest light a person infirm and ill – a case sure to prove difficult and to require much handling; though giving perhaps, with other matters, one of those chances for good taste, possibly even for the play of the very best in the world, that are not only always to be invoked and cultivated, but that are absolutely to be jumped at from the moment they make a sign.

Yes then, the case prescribed for its central figure a sick young woman, at the whole course of whose disintegration and the whole ordeal of whose consciousness one would have quite honestly to assist. The expression of her state and that of one’s intimate relation to it might therefore well need to be discreet and ingenious...