(JAMES, Henry.) Typed Letter Signed.
A typed letter on Henry James Personal Letterhead to his cousin Louise Walsh, some minor handwritten emendations by James, signed by the Author, dated 23 June 1913, 6.75*9 inches, 4 pp., accompanied with the original mailing envelope, and a postcard reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s 1913 Painting of James.
The 4 pp. letter folded twice; near fine. The envelope opened, a little browned and chipped to the edges. The postcard is fine.
The letter was dictated by James, and most likely typed by Theodora Bosanquet (1180-1961), James’ Personal Secretary from 1907 until his death in 1916. Bosanquet’s memoirs, entitled “Henry James at Work”, were published in 1924 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. The memoirs discussed her time with James, providing a “lively and engaging commentary on James' milieu, preferences, and attitudes, as well as on his process of writing and revision."(University of Michigan Press.) After James' death, Bosanquet worked as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women, travelling widely in support of the women's suffrage movement. Between 1935 to 1958 Bosanquet began working as Literary Editor of the Publication “Time and Tide”, ultimately progressing to the position of Director.
James first met John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) in Paris, later helping Sargent to start his successful career in London as a Portraitist. The two men maintained a close friendship throughout their lives. To commemorate the publication of a "A Small Boy and Others” in 1913, James’ British friends commissioned Sargent to paint a portrait of James. The iconic painting can be viewed today in the National Portrait Gallery.
Written just three years prior to his death in 1916, James opens the letter: “First of all forgive my use of this cold-blooded machinery - I absolutely have in these days to depend on it; without it I should be able, through physical un-fitness, to answer but one letter in twenty."
James writes, “I rejoice that my fat book - really such an imprudent attempt to interest my public, such as it is, in my little affairs between the ages of two and fifteen or sixteen - appealed to you and struck old chords of memory; as for that matter I hoped it would; so much matter of memory of the very old days we have in common.” Published the same year as the date of the letter, the “fat book” James mentions is the first volume of his Autobiography, entitled “A Small Boy and Others.” The idea for this work was originally conceived in 1911 by James after conversations with Alice James (1849-1922), the widow of his older Brother William James (1842-1910). In the book, James discusses his childhood experiences of school, family, and his first European trips, where he met esteemed Authors including Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. The book received plaudits for James’ honesty and discussion of the inferiority he felt.
The Autobiographical Account in “A Small Boy and Others” was continued the following year in 1914 with the publication of “Notes of a Son and Brother.” James writes that he is “… doing a second volume to the Small Boy, carrying on my too egotistical narrative some ten years more, or about up to my own twenty-fifth. This time, however, I shall be much less egotistical - and this second instalment is but an essential part of the book itself, the “Family Book”, as first planned. I overflowed so much more than I intended about my babyhood and the few years after in the Small Boy that all that latter and more important part got crowded out. But you shall before very long have it as a volume by itself.”
James started work on a third volume of his memoirs in 1914. The work was not completed during his lifetime, and posthumously published as The Middle Years (1917).
The ODNB aptly summarises James’ Autobiographical Works: "The difficult, self-reflexive manner of the books, their poetic interest and pleasure in the working of memory, and their constant reversion to the autobiographical make them unique in their kind. They were accorded a warm critical reception."
Louise Walsh was a younger cousin of James’ from his Mother’s side of the family. The letter is poignant in revealing the affection James clearly felt for Louise: “It gave me great pleasure the other day to hear from you…. your recollections and impressions of poor dear Henry W. are most interesting and touching to me, and delightful your story of taking him to see Salvini and your adventure afterwards.”
James continues the discussion on his Father: “I tried at least to do him and his queer justice - and think I did. The anecdote about his repressed puttings into the plate at church almost makes me cry, and I don’t understand it on Cousin Helen’s part, when she had such accumulations of his fortune to draw upon. It was her confounded narrow-minded conscience; she had such fear of being extravagant at his expense.”
James goes on to write: “I thank you, however, for your news of the friend, your neighbour, Miss Havens, and of her having interesting letters of William’s. We are indeed gathering in, for the publication of his correspondence on a considerable scale, everything of interest, in that kind, that comes to our knowledge…. If any of them are useable, as will probably be the case, they will be copied and carefully returned to the owner. It is Alice and Harry who are mainly concerning themselves with the collecting and editing of William’s Letters simply as such. He was so admirable a letter-writer that they will constitute his real and best biography.”
William James was Henry James older Brother, and a very accomplished individual in his own right. One of the most notable thinkers, historians and psychologists of the late 19th century, he is often referred to as the “father of American psychology”. William married Alice in 1878 and went on to have five children with her. Henry James III (1879-1947) was their eldest son, and a prominent Author winning the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1931. Henry James III was affectionately referred to as “Harry" by his Uncle.
James discusses how his life was in this period, not long before his death in 1916: “I am in no great state of reckless activity for overabounding vigour in this evening of my life; but I get on with care, though I haven’t a superior trained nurse, like you, to sit with me “evenings”. I now spend my winters, that is 6 or 7 months of the year, regularly in London; I found I could no longer stand, for long stretches of time, the solitude and confinement of the country. Of course, your Stamford is a brilliant provincial city (if you will excuse “provincial”) compared to my poor little Rye perched lonely, as one may say almost, upon a rick of ocean."
The letter touchingly concludes: “Let me repeat how glad I have been, dear Louise, to hear from you, and believe me all faithfully yours… Henry James."
(ODNB.) (University of Michigan Press.) (William James: Writings 1878-1899, The Library of America.)
Please contact us for shipping costs if ordering from outside the UK.
A typed letter on Henry James Personal Letterhead to his cousin Louise Walsh, some minor handwritten emendations by James, signed by the Author, dated 23 June 1913, 6.75*9 inches, 4 pp., accompanied with the original mailing envelope, and a postcard reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s 1913 Painting of James.
The 4 pp. letter folded twice; near fine. The envelope opened, a little browned and chipped to the edges. The postcard is fine.
The letter was dictated by James, and most likely typed by Theodora Bosanquet (1180-1961), James’ Personal Secretary from 1907 until his death in 1916. Bosanquet’s memoirs, entitled “Henry James at Work”, were published in 1924 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. The memoirs discussed her time with James, providing a “lively and engaging commentary on James' milieu, preferences, and attitudes, as well as on his process of writing and revision."(University of Michigan Press.) After James' death, Bosanquet worked as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women, travelling widely in support of the women's suffrage movement. Between 1935 to 1958 Bosanquet began working as Literary Editor of the Publication “Time and Tide”, ultimately progressing to the position of Director.
James first met John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) in Paris, later helping Sargent to start his successful career in London as a Portraitist. The two men maintained a close friendship throughout their lives. To commemorate the publication of a "A Small Boy and Others” in 1913, James’ British friends commissioned Sargent to paint a portrait of James. The iconic painting can be viewed today in the National Portrait Gallery.
Written just three years prior to his death in 1916, James opens the letter: “First of all forgive my use of this cold-blooded machinery - I absolutely have in these days to depend on it; without it I should be able, through physical un-fitness, to answer but one letter in twenty."
James writes, “I rejoice that my fat book - really such an imprudent attempt to interest my public, such as it is, in my little affairs between the ages of two and fifteen or sixteen - appealed to you and struck old chords of memory; as for that matter I hoped it would; so much matter of memory of the very old days we have in common.” Published the same year as the date of the letter, the “fat book” James mentions is the first volume of his Autobiography, entitled “A Small Boy and Others.” The idea for this work was originally conceived in 1911 by James after conversations with Alice James (1849-1922), the widow of his older Brother William James (1842-1910). In the book, James discusses his childhood experiences of school, family, and his first European trips, where he met esteemed Authors including Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. The book received plaudits for James’ honesty and discussion of the inferiority he felt.
The Autobiographical Account in “A Small Boy and Others” was continued the following year in 1914 with the publication of “Notes of a Son and Brother.” James writes that he is “… doing a second volume to the Small Boy, carrying on my too egotistical narrative some ten years more, or about up to my own twenty-fifth. This time, however, I shall be much less egotistical - and this second instalment is but an essential part of the book itself, the “Family Book”, as first planned. I overflowed so much more than I intended about my babyhood and the few years after in the Small Boy that all that latter and more important part got crowded out. But you shall before very long have it as a volume by itself.”
James started work on a third volume of his memoirs in 1914. The work was not completed during his lifetime, and posthumously published as The Middle Years (1917).
The ODNB aptly summarises James’ Autobiographical Works: "The difficult, self-reflexive manner of the books, their poetic interest and pleasure in the working of memory, and their constant reversion to the autobiographical make them unique in their kind. They were accorded a warm critical reception."
Louise Walsh was a younger cousin of James’ from his Mother’s side of the family. The letter is poignant in revealing the affection James clearly felt for Louise: “It gave me great pleasure the other day to hear from you…. your recollections and impressions of poor dear Henry W. are most interesting and touching to me, and delightful your story of taking him to see Salvini and your adventure afterwards.”
James continues the discussion on his Father: “I tried at least to do him and his queer justice - and think I did. The anecdote about his repressed puttings into the plate at church almost makes me cry, and I don’t understand it on Cousin Helen’s part, when she had such accumulations of his fortune to draw upon. It was her confounded narrow-minded conscience; she had such fear of being extravagant at his expense.”
James goes on to write: “I thank you, however, for your news of the friend, your neighbour, Miss Havens, and of her having interesting letters of William’s. We are indeed gathering in, for the publication of his correspondence on a considerable scale, everything of interest, in that kind, that comes to our knowledge…. If any of them are useable, as will probably be the case, they will be copied and carefully returned to the owner. It is Alice and Harry who are mainly concerning themselves with the collecting and editing of William’s Letters simply as such. He was so admirable a letter-writer that they will constitute his real and best biography.”
William James was Henry James older Brother, and a very accomplished individual in his own right. One of the most notable thinkers, historians and psychologists of the late 19th century, he is often referred to as the “father of American psychology”. William married Alice in 1878 and went on to have five children with her. Henry James III (1879-1947) was their eldest son, and a prominent Author winning the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1931. Henry James III was affectionately referred to as “Harry" by his Uncle.
James discusses how his life was in this period, not long before his death in 1916: “I am in no great state of reckless activity for overabounding vigour in this evening of my life; but I get on with care, though I haven’t a superior trained nurse, like you, to sit with me “evenings”. I now spend my winters, that is 6 or 7 months of the year, regularly in London; I found I could no longer stand, for long stretches of time, the solitude and confinement of the country. Of course, your Stamford is a brilliant provincial city (if you will excuse “provincial”) compared to my poor little Rye perched lonely, as one may say almost, upon a rick of ocean."
The letter touchingly concludes: “Let me repeat how glad I have been, dear Louise, to hear from you, and believe me all faithfully yours… Henry James."
(ODNB.) (University of Michigan Press.) (William James: Writings 1878-1899, The Library of America.)
Please contact us for shipping costs if ordering from outside the UK.
A typed letter on Henry James Personal Letterhead to his cousin Louise Walsh, some minor handwritten emendations by James, signed by the Author, dated 23 June 1913, 6.75*9 inches, 4 pp., accompanied with the original mailing envelope, and a postcard reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s 1913 Painting of James.
The 4 pp. letter folded twice; near fine. The envelope opened, a little browned and chipped to the edges. The postcard is fine.
The letter was dictated by James, and most likely typed by Theodora Bosanquet (1180-1961), James’ Personal Secretary from 1907 until his death in 1916. Bosanquet’s memoirs, entitled “Henry James at Work”, were published in 1924 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. The memoirs discussed her time with James, providing a “lively and engaging commentary on James' milieu, preferences, and attitudes, as well as on his process of writing and revision."(University of Michigan Press.) After James' death, Bosanquet worked as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women, travelling widely in support of the women's suffrage movement. Between 1935 to 1958 Bosanquet began working as Literary Editor of the Publication “Time and Tide”, ultimately progressing to the position of Director.
James first met John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) in Paris, later helping Sargent to start his successful career in London as a Portraitist. The two men maintained a close friendship throughout their lives. To commemorate the publication of a "A Small Boy and Others” in 1913, James’ British friends commissioned Sargent to paint a portrait of James. The iconic painting can be viewed today in the National Portrait Gallery.
Written just three years prior to his death in 1916, James opens the letter: “First of all forgive my use of this cold-blooded machinery - I absolutely have in these days to depend on it; without it I should be able, through physical un-fitness, to answer but one letter in twenty."
James writes, “I rejoice that my fat book - really such an imprudent attempt to interest my public, such as it is, in my little affairs between the ages of two and fifteen or sixteen - appealed to you and struck old chords of memory; as for that matter I hoped it would; so much matter of memory of the very old days we have in common.” Published the same year as the date of the letter, the “fat book” James mentions is the first volume of his Autobiography, entitled “A Small Boy and Others.” The idea for this work was originally conceived in 1911 by James after conversations with Alice James (1849-1922), the widow of his older Brother William James (1842-1910). In the book, James discusses his childhood experiences of school, family, and his first European trips, where he met esteemed Authors including Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. The book received plaudits for James’ honesty and discussion of the inferiority he felt.
The Autobiographical Account in “A Small Boy and Others” was continued the following year in 1914 with the publication of “Notes of a Son and Brother.” James writes that he is “… doing a second volume to the Small Boy, carrying on my too egotistical narrative some ten years more, or about up to my own twenty-fifth. This time, however, I shall be much less egotistical - and this second instalment is but an essential part of the book itself, the “Family Book”, as first planned. I overflowed so much more than I intended about my babyhood and the few years after in the Small Boy that all that latter and more important part got crowded out. But you shall before very long have it as a volume by itself.”
James started work on a third volume of his memoirs in 1914. The work was not completed during his lifetime, and posthumously published as The Middle Years (1917).
The ODNB aptly summarises James’ Autobiographical Works: "The difficult, self-reflexive manner of the books, their poetic interest and pleasure in the working of memory, and their constant reversion to the autobiographical make them unique in their kind. They were accorded a warm critical reception."
Louise Walsh was a younger cousin of James’ from his Mother’s side of the family. The letter is poignant in revealing the affection James clearly felt for Louise: “It gave me great pleasure the other day to hear from you…. your recollections and impressions of poor dear Henry W. are most interesting and touching to me, and delightful your story of taking him to see Salvini and your adventure afterwards.”
James continues the discussion on his Father: “I tried at least to do him and his queer justice - and think I did. The anecdote about his repressed puttings into the plate at church almost makes me cry, and I don’t understand it on Cousin Helen’s part, when she had such accumulations of his fortune to draw upon. It was her confounded narrow-minded conscience; she had such fear of being extravagant at his expense.”
James goes on to write: “I thank you, however, for your news of the friend, your neighbour, Miss Havens, and of her having interesting letters of William’s. We are indeed gathering in, for the publication of his correspondence on a considerable scale, everything of interest, in that kind, that comes to our knowledge…. If any of them are useable, as will probably be the case, they will be copied and carefully returned to the owner. It is Alice and Harry who are mainly concerning themselves with the collecting and editing of William’s Letters simply as such. He was so admirable a letter-writer that they will constitute his real and best biography.”
William James was Henry James older Brother, and a very accomplished individual in his own right. One of the most notable thinkers, historians and psychologists of the late 19th century, he is often referred to as the “father of American psychology”. William married Alice in 1878 and went on to have five children with her. Henry James III (1879-1947) was their eldest son, and a prominent Author winning the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1931. Henry James III was affectionately referred to as “Harry" by his Uncle.
James discusses how his life was in this period, not long before his death in 1916: “I am in no great state of reckless activity for overabounding vigour in this evening of my life; but I get on with care, though I haven’t a superior trained nurse, like you, to sit with me “evenings”. I now spend my winters, that is 6 or 7 months of the year, regularly in London; I found I could no longer stand, for long stretches of time, the solitude and confinement of the country. Of course, your Stamford is a brilliant provincial city (if you will excuse “provincial”) compared to my poor little Rye perched lonely, as one may say almost, upon a rick of ocean."
The letter touchingly concludes: “Let me repeat how glad I have been, dear Louise, to hear from you, and believe me all faithfully yours… Henry James."
(ODNB.) (University of Michigan Press.) (William James: Writings 1878-1899, The Library of America.)
Please contact us for shipping costs if ordering from outside the UK.