The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1855–1872: Volumes 1 and 2
Edited by Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias

“These extraordinary, profoundly welcome volumes are the first fruits of an epic undertaking by two heroic American scholars, Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias. . . . The two volumes here contain 161 painstakingly   edited, spaciously presented letters (52 previously unpublished). The total number of James letters known to be in existence today is 10,423. . . . The editors coolly estimate that ‘this project will produce at least 140 individual volumes.’ A comprehensive edition is overdue. . . . [T]hese early volumes give a wonderfully pleasurable picture of a writer at the beginning of his journey, enduring setbacks and barren spells, but already showing the impressive resilience, wisdom and wit that were the foundations of his astonishing career.”—Philip Horne, The Daily Telegraph

“Luxuriously spacious design. . . . The textual editing of the letters is fantastically thorough, every blot, deletion, insertion and misspelling being lucidly presented in the text itself and further described in endnotes to each letter; for the reader this evokes the dash and spontaneity of James’s pen, and for the scholar it clarifies every possible ambiguity caused by that dash. . . . The letters themselves are so vivid, funny and revealing that [the edition] is already indispensable.”—Alan Hollinghurst, The Guardian

"[James’s] letters have never before appeared in their entirety. The University of Nebraska Press is attempting, slowly, to make up for that fact in a scholarly edition that obviates the need for any other.”—Benjamin Markovits, Times Literary Supplement

“Rippling through these letters are the first imaginative stirrings of one of the greatest fiction and travel writers in the language. He was also one of the most entertaining—and prolific—correspondents. . . . James’s correspondence, its editors estimate, will run to at least 140 volumes and will include more than 10,000 letters. The most comprehensive edition before this . . . offered just 1,000 or so. The partiality of that selection is revealed by this magisterial new venture, whose two opening volumes brim with a wealth of hitherto unpublished letters. . . . These are richly enthralling letters. The sooner the next 138 or so volumes appear, the better.” —Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times (London)

“The volumes are beautiful, solidly put together, with big type, wide margins, and copious annotations remarking on cross-outs and misspellings and new words written over old ones. . . . [They] bring a high seriousness to letters that were usually dashed off; certainly the scholars preparing these volumes will have spent many more hours on each letter than did either James or the recipients he was addressing.”—Edmund V. White, The New York Review of Books

“[T]he general public has been deprived of James’s full epistolary record until now. . . . All the more reason to celebrate the present volumes, handsomely produced and extensively and intelligently annotated, which inaugurate a complete edition in some 140 volumes, and to feel gratitude toward the editors and the University of Nebraska Press.”—Peter Brooks, Bookforum

“[This] collected edition of James’s letters was needed. . . . These two volumes . . . . throw much light on [Henry James’] relationship with his family and his country of birth while at the same time helping us towards some understanding of his health problems, such as they were. Some of the letters from Italy are small masterpieces of description; they are alert and sensitive and full of astute judgments. Sometimes, too, James is funny, irreverent and outspoken.”—Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books