The Complete Letters of Henry James 1876–1878 eds. by Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias, and: The Complete Letters of Henry James 1878–1880 ed. by Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias, and: The Master, The Modern Major General and his Clever Wife: Henry James's Letters to Field Marshal Lord Wolseley and Lady Wolseley 1878–1913 ed. by Alan G. James (review)

Perhaps the most celebrated piece of trivia about Henry James's life is that in the winter of 1878–1879 he accepted 107 dinner invitations (Lubbock 69). Some sources say 109. Either way, we are talking a lot of nights out. A relative newcomer to the London scene, James was much in demand as a guest that winter, partly because of the recent success of his story "Daisy Miller" but also because of his growing reputation as an engaging and entertaining conversationalist. Evening dinners were only part of his social programme. There were also lunches, theater parties, visits to attractions, [End Page E-12] and weekends in the country. According to Leon Edel, throughout that "season" James attended 140 separate engagements (223–24). What then are we to make of James's complaint in a previously unpublished letter to his "dearest mammy" in January 1879 that he "feels rather isolated & 'out of it' as they say here"? He states: "I have no particular news & I am passing a very quiet winter" (1878–1880, 1: 103). James notes that the retired actress Fanny Kemble is his only close friend. "All my relations in England are mere acquaintances—I don't suppose I have any talent for making friends. I hear indeed that I am considered in London very 'reserved' & rather offish" (1878–1880, 1: 104). Have we caught James here in the act of dissembling, gently editing his activities in a bid to reassure his parents that he is working hard and living sober? Or are we, alternatively, intruding on a heartfelt yearning for close and personal ties, a human appetite for company so intense that even 107 dinners could not sate it?

James has left over ten thousand letters for posterity to digest, and one might be forgiven for assuming that with such a wealth of data at our disposal we should now be able to draw some firm conclusions about the man. There is no doubt that the ongoing University of Nebraska edition of The Complete Letters of Henry James continues to illuminate James's activities in new ways. In recently released volumes covering the years 1876–1878 and 1878–1880, we can at last see the young loafer and scribbler coming of age and maturing into the assured author of The American, "Daisy Miller," and Washington Square. We witness his discovery of London and the start of his integration into the fabric of British high society. We smile as he acquires the habit of name-dropping—Anthony Trollope, Andrew Lang, Matthew Arnold, Margaret Oliphant, T. H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer—initially with the awe of the newcomer and then with a tinge of contempt, perhaps as an attempt to breed familiarity. And, letter by letter, we begin to understand the sheer amount of effort involved in keeping up with those privileged circles. No wonder Spencer was always asleep in his armchair at the Athenaeum whenever James saw him. These volumes certainly give us a much richer picture than ever before of the granular patterns of James's social world...