The uncollected Henry James

More than two decades of research, study, and literary detection lie behind this treasury of stories by one of the undisputed giants in the field of American fiction, as Professor Floyd Horowitz here offers a collection of tales that he himself has authenticated to be the work of the prodigiously gifted Henry James. The author of such celebrated novels as The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl, The Wings of the Dove, and The Ambassadors, James is also justly remembered for his novellas and scores of short stories. And there may indeed be scores more, as this important volume shows. Published anonymously or under noms de plume in magazines like nineteenth-century New York’s favorite The Knickerbocker, Frank Leslie’s Lady’s Magazine, The National Magazine, and The Continental, a Civil War propaganda magazine, these previously uncollected pieces represent both apprentice work and early stories that already bear the mark of Jamesian artistry. Written in a period of more than ten years before James’s first signed fiction appeared (in 1865) and readily accepted by the publishers and editors among his father’s excellent connections, these uncovered stories add significantly to the James canon.