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Writing and Rewriting in Henry James

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Philip Horne
Philip Horne
Affiliation:
Philip Horne is lecturer in English literature in the Department of English, University College, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, England.
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Extract

In one of James's best-known stories, “The Middle Years” (1893), the mortally ill author Dencombe, staying at Bournemouth for the sake of what remains of his health, gets an advance copy of his latest – and almost certainly his last – novel, which is called The Middle Years. Looking over what might have been thought to be his finished and dismissed work on his clifftop bench, Dencombe revises it:

Dencombe was a passionate corrector, a fingerer of style; the last thing he ever arrived at was a form final for himself. His ideal would have been to publish secretly, and then, on the published text, treat himself to the terrified revise, sacrificing always a first edition and beginning for posterity and even for the collectors, poor dears, with a second.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 1989 , pp. 357 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

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