Textual Monuments/Crumbling Idols; or, What We Never Knew about Henry James (and Never Thought to Ask)

The notoriety of his meticulous revision of his works for the New York Edition (1907-09)—and the presumption of textual accuracy that would seem necessarily to result from it—has contributed powerfully to the aura of mastery that we attribute to Henry James. Closer analysis of the many different textual versions of his work will force us to reexamine and rethink the question of James's editorial infallibility. This essay invites us to consider what we can learn from an author's mistakes.