When he was 29, Henry James traveled to Europe with his sister and aunt, visiting France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and elsewhere. Together, they did all sorts of touristy things, and after his aunt and sister left, Henry went horseback riding, met famous poets, and documented just about everything he did through letters he wrote to friends and family back in the United States.

Throughout his whole life, James wrote letters – thousands and thousands of letters, letters the University of Nebraska Press is slowly but surely editing and publishing in a collection titled The Complete Letters of Henry James. The collection will eventually include dozens of volumes, but so far, there are three.

The most recent volume, the one detailing his European travels, was in today’s Wall Street Journal, in a review that begins:

For a snapshot of 19th-century Europe — and a sampling of a great novelist's young mind — there is perhaps nothing better than the latest, meticulously edited volume of "The Complete Letters of Henry James" …

Here’s the full review.