The complete notebooks of Henry James

"This book includes the nine scribbler-notebooks that were published by Oxford in 1947 ; these have been considerably updated and annotated to correct the identification of stories developed by James from his various notes and to reveal many noted Victorians James concealed through the use of their initials. Certain omitted portions of the notebooks have also been restored. This volume is especially noteworthy for the body of new material (over 20,000 words) that it contains. It includes a series of James's pocket diaries in which, amid appointments and luncheon dates, he jotted down observations and ideas for his fiction and commented on his personal relations. Also here are some fugitive dictated notes, in which James offered an autobiographical meditation on the "turning point" in his life and the "working out" of a story based on a passion murder by the American acquaintance in the south of France. James's long out-of-print statements for his unfinished novels The Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past, scenarios for unfinished plays, the writer's deathbed dictation - all these are here as well. Also included is a long outline of The Ambassadors and jacket cover notes that are now identified as James's own writing. An appendix contains a substantial, and previously unpublished, fragment of Hugh Merrow, a story he never completed, and the book even provides insight into James's "cash accounts". Everywhere throughout the collection, in writings never intended for the public eye, the artist is seen at work. His private prayers to his Good Angel and exhortations to himself make exhilarating reading."--Inside jacket cover.