The Center for Henry James Studies
Creighton University
Greg W. Zacharias, Director
Katie Sommer, Associate Editor, The Complete Letters of Henry James
Mathew Carroll, undergraduate
assistant
Michelle McGauvran,
undergraduate assistant
The Complete Letters of Henry James
Archive of Letter Copies
Library of Henry James Scholarship
James Family Papers
Henry James
Society, Inc.
“Jamesian Strands,” Newport, R.I., 2008 Conference
Registration
Center for Henry
James Studies letter files
The Complete Letters
of Henry James
2007 Outstanding Academic Book, sponsored by Choice
Magazine, selection
Forthcoming
(January 2009):
Purpose of the
Project
Henry James (1843-1916) is widely regarded as one of
the most important literary figures in the history of U.S.
culture. James wrote more than twenty novels, some one hundred short
stories, thousands of pages of art and literary criticism, several volumes of
travel essays, and several autobiographical volumes. He played a central role
in achieving the acceptance in the English-speaking world of fiction as art and
an expression of a nation’s artistic production. James’s role in determining
the direction of American literature and thus culture is represented in his
letters to an extraordinary range of over 1,000 individuals. A complete
collection of the letters will enrich by its range and detail our understanding
of Henry James’s importance to our cultural legacy, to the way we understand
ourselves today as a people, and thus to the way we will conduct ourselves
tomorrow. Henry James’s talents as an observer
and reporter of American, British, French, and
Italian cultures of the later nineteenth century, in combination with the
extraordinary range of individuals with whom he corresponded, make his letters
useful for historians, biographers, cultural critics, and literary
scholars. Thus, the letters and the Center’s library will constitute a
unique and significant resource for students, teachers, scholars of Henry James, and also
of American and European history and culture from the later nineteenth century.
The University of
Nebraska Press is publishing the edition
in volumes of approximately 75 letters, with respective textual commentary,
informational notes and front matter. To date, two books have been published, 1855-1872,
volume 1 and 1855-1872,
volume 2. The third book, 1872-1876,
volume 1, will be available at the beginning of 2009.
Creighton University
provides office space and an operating budget for the James Center.
The University of
Nebraska Press is
responsible for the production of the print edition. Public funding and
donations and grants from private sources will be necessary for project
completion. Naming opportunities are available. All contributions are tax
deductible. Letters of inquiry and interest are invited. Third-party
contributions may qualify the Center to receive federal matching funds.
General Editors of The Complete Letters of
Henry James are Greg W. Zacharias
(Creighton University) and Pierre A. Walker (Salem State
College)
Archive of Letter
Copies
With a complete archive of letter copies as the basis
of The Complete Letters project, the Center will become the only place
in the world where scholars, teachers, and students can read all of James’s
more than 10,000 letters to more than one thousand correspondents.
Currently James’s letters are held in 132 known archives and private
collections in the United States,
England,
and elsewhere, making it difficult and expensive (if not impossible in the case
of private collections) to gain access to the letters. The Center welcomes requests for letter copies and/or
transcriptions of these manuscripts. Requests can be emailed to Greg
Zacharias, gwzach@creighton.edu,
or faxed to (402) 280-5717.
Library of Henry
James Scholarship
A library of James scholarship will complement the
letter archive and be invaluable, moreover, to the Center’s editors. The
Center welcomes contributions to its library (which are tax-deductible) in the
form of books, collections, and offprints. Also
helpful to all users is a complete Online
Calendar of Henry James's Letters and A Biographical
Register of Henry James's Correspondents, by Steven H. Jobe
and Susan E. Gunter.
James Family Papers
The James Family Papers archive is comprised of
documents belonging to Ms. Bay James and on loan to the Center for Henry James
Studies at Creighton
University. Ms.
James loaned the documents to the James
Center in order to
preserve and protect them, to make them centrally available for family members,
and also, at the same time, to make them available to scholars.
Center for Henry James Studies
Creighton University
Omaha, NE 68178
(402) 280-5714
(402) 280-5717 fax
gwzach@creighton.edu
Advisory Board for The
Complete Letters of Henry James
|
Michael Anesko
The Pennsylvania
State University
|
Millicent Bell
Boston University
|
|
Daniel Mark Fogel
University of Vermont
|
Robert Gale
University of Pittsburgh
|
|
Susan Gunter
Westminster College
|
Richard Hocks
University of Missouri-Columbia
|
|
Philip Horne
University College London
|
Bay James
Newbury, MA
|
|
Henry James
Dublin, NH
|
Steven Jobe
Hanover College (Indiana)
|
|
Fred Kaplan
CUNY
|
David McWhirter
Texas A & M University
|
|
George
Monteiro
Brown University
|
Lyall H. Powers
The University
of Michigan
|
|
Roberta A. Sheehan
Quincy, MA
|
Cheryl
Torsney
West Virginia University
|
|
Pierre
Walker
Salem State College
|
Ruth Bernard Yeazell
Yale University
|
|
Rosella Mamoli
Zorzi
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
|
|
Editorial Advisory
Board for The Complete Letters of Henry James
|
Michael Anesko
The Pennsylvania
State University
|
Millicent Bell
Boston University
|
|
Susan Gunter
Westminster College
|
Steven Jobe
Hanover College (Indiana)
|
|
George
Monteiro
Brown University
|
Rosella Mamoli Zorzi
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
|