Collister Peter - A small boy and others: a critical edition

T he many biographical works on Henry James and the James family have proved an excellent initial resource in preparing this edition of the novelist's autobiographical writings, as the references in my notes will indicate. For facts about the family background and relationships, Katherine Hastings's genealogical study, William James (17711832) of Albany, N.Y., and his Descendants, offers absolutely accurate detail. Though he has suffered some posthumous disfavor, Leon Edel remains an influential and persuasive voice owing to the broad scope of his endeavors, biographical and editorial. F. O. Matthiessen's The James Family contains useful material and commentary relating both to Henry James Sr. and to William James. Robert C. Le Clair's Young Henry James offers especially interesting detail on the novelist's playgoing experiences in New York, London, and Paris, and R. W. B. Lewis in The Jameses provides insights into the dynamics of family life and the Civil War period.

More recently, Sheldon Novick has constructed a revised and imaginative (if sometimes unreliable) portrait of the novelist's earlier years in Henry James: The Young Master. The multivolume edition of the Correspondence of William James, edited by Ignas Skrupskelis and Elizabeth M. Berkeley, has been indispensable, especially when considering the Jameses' Cambridge years.

Because of the wealth of its meticulously researched detail and depth of insight I have been very reliant (as my notes will testify) on Alfred Habegger's The Father: A Life of Henry James Sr., a model of biographical method. Like many others working on the James family, I have received help and encouragement from Professor Habegger, who has been kind enough to read through some of my work and to share his extensive knowledge. Pierre A. Walker has been equally generous, offering consistently thoughtful and practical advice.

For generously allowing me to quote from previously unpublished James MS materials I am indebted to Bay James, on behalf of the James family, and to Leslie A. Morris, curator of modern books and manuscripts in the Harvard College Library, on behalf of the president and fellows of Harvard College.

During the preparation of this edition I was fortunate to be awarded the Stanley J. Kahrl Fellowship in Literary Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University. I was grateful for such an endorsement of my project and for the financial support it provided. It was a pleasure to work in such an inspirational environment. All the staff at Houghton were uniformly kind and helpful, and I must mention by name Leslie A. Morris, Peter Accardo, Susan Halpert, and Mary Haegert who have continued to support my work.

I have also benefited from the excellent resources and the support of the expert staff at the British Library (where I have been helped especially by Jenny Grimshaw, Dorian Hayes, Lyn Norvell, Lisa Oladeinde, Tim Pye, and Matthew Shaw). The staff of the London Library (from where my cycle ride home necessarily involved passing one of James's earliest London addresses, in Half Moon Street) have been characteristically helpfulespecially so, in light of the Library's major building project currently in progress. I also used the resources of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and was made welcome at the Vere Harmsworth Library, Rothermere American Institute, Oxford, where Isabel Holowaty proved very generous in offering me both time and advice. Carroll Odhner, director of the Swedenborg Library, Bryn Athyn College, Pennsylvania, was very helpful with my queries about Swedenborg. The New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society also provided me with information.

Many individualson both sides of the Atlantichave offered information and advice, and I am grateful to the following: Peter C. Caldwell, Charles Capper, Jack Furniss, Joseph E. Glatthaar, Elaine Grublin, Charles J. Hayes, Celia Heath, Eric Homberger, Park Honan, Steven C. Jobe, Richard Kaufman, Jack Lucy, James M. McPherson, Adeline Morris, William S. Peterson, Jeanne Ritchie, Letha Clair Robertson, Frida Robinson, David J. Rothman, Roberta Sheehan, Richard Sheldon, Alan Steel, Christopher A. Strong, Hannah Sullivan, Kathryn Summerwill, James L. Yarnall, and Greg Zacharias. Any remaining errata are undoubtedly my own.

A very kind woman in Newport, Rhode Island, whose name I didn't get, when asked for directions, insisted on driving me to the stone house on the corner of Spring and Lee streets inhabited by the Jameses in the early 1860s. Its current owner, Charles J. Hayes, welcomed an unannounced stranger and insisted on my viewing the whole place. Nearer home, my string quartet-playing friends have consistently shown more-than-polite interest in my work.

The anonymous readers of my original proposal for the University of Virginia Press made useful suggestions, and Cathie Brettschneider, the press's humanities editor, has been a constant and very supportive presence; I have deeply appreciated her kindness and intelligence. Ruth Melville has proved to be an exemplary copy editor of the manuscript, and I have valued her expert advice. Morgan Myers has also been a helpful and responsive project editor. Finally, John Aplin has spared me much time from his own large-scale biographical studies of the Thackeray family and has helped me with many of the challengesoften technologicalthat have inevitably arisen over the years.