. . . . . . . . the Henry James scholar's Guide to Web Sites

Photo of Henry
James

This site was selected by The New York Times "Browser" column as one of five recommended Web sites for the week of January 27, 2000.

The Henry James E-Journal

Cornell's Making of America image library

  • Browse Cornell's Making of America image library - Thousands of books and 19th-century periodicals are reproduced in their entirety as page-by-page images--for example The Atlantic Monthly, The Galaxy, and other periodicals in which James's stories and novels first appeared. Clicking on "J" at the bottom of the page allows you to browse in "J" authors and book titles, including Henry James. Each page image reproduces the original source exactly. Images are loaded one page at a time, can be zoomed, and are downloadable, one page at a time, in various formats, including pdf (Adobe Acrobat). For those wishing to do Optical Character Recognition or printing of images, the pdf format works especially well.

Writings about (and by) Henry James, including film reviews

Henry James etexts at other sites; Concordance

  • Henry James etexts at Adrian Dover's Web site - Annotations of the works add to the interest of this excellent site. The following list is probably incomplete, as Adrian Dover frequently adds new etexts of James's short stories to his site.
    Novels (with individual links):
    The Princess Casamassima; The Tragic Muse; The Spoils of Poynton; The Awkward Age; The Ivory Tower (with the long working note and extracts from the notebook entries);
    Tales (use menu):
    The Abasement of the Northmores; The Beast in the Jungle; The Beldonald Holbein; The Bench of Desolation; The Birthplace; Broken Wings; Brooksmith; Collaboration; Covering End; Crapy Cornelia; Flickerbridge; Fordham Castle; The Given Case; The Great Condition; John Delavoy; The Liar; A London Life; Lord Beaupr'e; Louisa Pallant; Maud-Evelyn; Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie; The Modern Warning; Mora Montravers; Mrs. Medwin; Mrs. Temperly; Owen Wingrave; The Papers; The Private Life; The Real Right Thing; A Round of Visits; Sir Edmund Orme; The Solution; The Special Type; The Story in It; The Tone of Time; The Tree of Knowledge; The Two Faces; The Velvet Glove; The Visits; The Wheel of Time;
    Plays:(use menu):
    Summersoft and The High Bid (in both independent and parallel-text versions).
  • A concordance to Henry James etexts at Adrian Dover's Web site
  • James's Preface to The American - with notes on The American (at Susan Griffin's Web site)
  • The American (text, the English Server)
  • Henry James etexts at the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia - (html, by chapters) The Altar of the Dead, Daisy Miller, The Aspern Papers, Confidence, The Turn of the Screw - Page down to the Henry James section. A large collection of other etexts can also be accessed at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/uvaonline.html.
  • The Art of Fiction - (html, Universita degli Studi di Bergamo)
  • "The Friends of the Friends" and "A Landscape Painter" (html, with commentary) These two stories are located on Casey Abell's Web site. Go to the end of his home page to reach the links.
  • The Jolly Corner (html, Gaslight, Mt. Royal College)
  • The Beast in the Jungle (html, by chapters, University of Colorado)
  • The Real Thing (html, by chapters, University of Colorado)
  • Project Gutenberg etexts of Henry James (text and zip formats, primarily) - Page down until you reach the Henry James section.
    Another way to access Project Gutenberg etexts is "http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/t9.cgi" but you may find the "Online Books" gateway to Project Gutenberg and other James sites more convenient to use. The following list is probably incomplete, as Project Gutenberg frequently adds new James etexts.
    The Ambassadors [originally prepared by Richard Hathaway, but unlike the text at New Paltz emended without notice and lacking his proofreading corrections of February 29, 2000], The Altar of the Dead, The American, The Aspern Papers, The Beast in the Jungle, The Beldonald Holbein, Brooksmith, The Chaperon, Confidence, The Coxon Fund, Daisy Miller (1879 text), The Death of the Lion, The Diary of a Man of Fifty, The Europeans, The Figure in the Carpet, Flickerbridge, Glasses, The Golden Bowl (1904 text), In the Cage, An International Episode, The Jolly Corner, The Lesson of the Master, A Little Tour in France, The Madonna of the Future, The Marriages, Mrs. Medwin, Nona Vincent, Pandora, The Patagonia, The Portrait of a Lady, The Pupil, The Real Thing, Roderick Hudson, The Story of [in] It, The Turn of the Screw)
    Some Project Gutenberg etexts not yet "officially released" are available indirectly via other sources. Suggestion: Keep trying the alternate sites until you find one that works for you.
    * The Pension Beaurepas (text)
    * A Bundle of Letters (text)
    * The Point of View (text)
    * Washington Square (text) - 1921 Macmillan edition
    * Sir Dominick Ferrand, Nona Vincent, The Chaperon, Greville Fane (text)
    * Eugene Pickering (text)
    Many of these titles are also available, with the added feature of being by chapters, from Great Literature Online (html). But note that the etext of The Ambassadors is the same Gutenberg etext that lacks the proofreading corrections of February 29, 2000. Also note that this site is full of pop-up advertising.

Alternatives to the above Henry James etexts

Finding other etexts

WebMuseum, Paris

  • WebMuseum, Paris - Nicolas Pioch's must-see site. A huge collection of great paintings, full-screen, full-color. Cap off the experience with a guided tour of Paris. Then come back here to see some paintings by Brian James, the great-great grandson of William James.

JamesF-L: an on-line discussion group

    Postings devoted to Henry James

  • Click here for sample JamesF-L postings and for sending commands such as SUBSCRIBE, etc.
    Using this link for sending such commands as SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, HELP, and GET will facilitate getting them to the correct address. (Commands are preferably sent in lower-case.)
    The sample-posting topics include "THE TURN OF THE SCREW," "HENRY JAMES' GERMAN ESSAYS," and "HENRY JAMES AND HOMO-EROTIC DESIRE."

    NOTE: As of the third week in June 2002, JamesF-L addresses have been changed to ones at Creighton.edu.

    All commands, including those mentioned above, go to MAJORDOMO@CREIGHTON.EDU.

    Messages by list subscribers for posting (i.e. sending to all JamesF-L subscribers) go to a different address: JAMESF-L@CREIGHTON.EDU.

  • Here's how to send commands to Majordomo: To SUBSCRIBE, send an e-mail message to MAJORDOMO@CREIGHTON.EDU with the message SUBSCRIBE JAMESF-L. (Preferably use lower-case for all commands.) If you are subscribing for an address other than the one you are sending from, then include, after SUBSCRIBE JAMESF-L, the address you want put on the subscription list. You will immediately receive instructions.

    To UNSUBSCRIBE from JamesF-L, send to MAJORDOMO@CREIGHTON.EDU the message UNSUBSCRIBE JAMESF-L.

    To get a description of the various commands that may be used with Majordomo, send the one-word message HELP to majordomo@creighton.edu.

Henry James conference announcements and calls for papers

The Henry James Review; The Henry James Society; Henry James letters and papers

  • The Henry James Review
  • The Henry James Society - Founded in 1979, the Henry James Society devotes itself to encouraging scholarly, as well as public, interest in Henry James and the James family. The Society publishes _The Henry James Review_, edited by Susan M. Griffin at the University of Louisville and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The annual subscription rate of $31 includes membership in the James Society. The Executive Director is Greg W. Zacharias, Creighton University, (gwzach@creighton.edu). The current President is Wendy Graham, Vassar College, (wegraham@vassar.edu).
  • Letters to Henry James from Robert Louis Stevenson - complete texts of the letters
  • Henry James complete-letters project - a project at Creighton University, Nebraska, to collect and publish copies of all of Henry James's letters.
  • James Family Papers inventory - The papers are on loan from Ms. Bay James to Creighton University. The inventory describes each item fully, with brief quotations. Permission to copy the inventory is not required.
  • An on-line calendar of Henry James's letters - a calendar of almost 10,500 letters and a register of more than 1,000 correspondents; compiled by Susan Gunter and Steven H. Jobe
  • NEW: Henry James correspondence and journals at the Houghton Library - a listing by date and correspondent of 2221 letters at Harvard's Houghton Library, plus 16 volumes of diaries and appointment books.

Home pages of some American authors

A grab bag: General guides to Web sites. Links to just about any author or any subject. Plus other goodies

  • Reading Group Guides.com - Discussion questions for book groups. Brief descriptions of books and quotations from reviews. Hundreds of book titles, particularly of contemporary novels. A few 19th-century books. Several William Faulkner titles, but no Henry James.
  • Something from Japan: Mitsuharu Matsuoka's home page - 19th-century English literature (especially Gaskell, Gissing, and Dickens); American literature. See the Index for a remarkably varied list of topics. Links to museums, publishers, newspapers all over the world.
  • Literary Resources on the Net - Jack Lynch's links to everything from Cicero to semiotics. Home pages, calls for papers, mailing lists, etc.
  • Voice of the Shuttle home page - Alan Liu's unusually comprehensive guide to Web sites. Of particular interest to scholars in the humanities. Note that "Literature (English)" on the menu includes American literature.
  • 19th Century American Writers - links to home pages of Dickinson, Emerson, Poe, Thoreau, and others
  • Eldritch Press page - links to many items of interest, including the campaign against the new copyright law that restricts creation of etexts
  • Bedford/St. Martin's links to Web sites - Unlike most sites, this one discriminatingly selects, evaluates, and describes the leading Web sites for critical theorists, novelists, poets, dramatists, essayists, and literary periods. Links to primary texts and critical articles. Study questions on each genre. Interactive tutorials on research techniques, Web searches, and using library catalogues on the Web. For composition, history, political science, etc., try http://www.bedfordstmartins. We list this site under three categories so that you won't miss it.
  • Librarians' Index to the Internet - a comprehensive index to just about any subject
  • Samizdat (Richard Seltzer) - This interesting miscellany includes some authors' home pages. Search for "Richard Seltzer's List of URLs" near the end of the home page: links to hundreds of Web sites, classified.
  • John Hewitt's Writer's Resource Center - suggestions and resources concerning writing and publishing everything from poetry to technical writing
  • Malaspina Great Books home page - art, music, teaching materials, on-line courses, bibliographies, and books for sale on scholarly subjects
  • Godey's Lady's Book home page
  • The Nest at Home - from Godey's Lady's Book
  • ZD Net - reviews of computer hardware and software, with price comparisons for different retail sources
  • The New York Times

An on-line language translator

  • Babel Fish language translator - Need help translating Henry James's French? Babel Fish "translates" several languages, with results that will often make you smile. (Use the "World Keyboard" option if you need to enter accented characters.)

Libraries, reference resources, books for sale

Teaching: ideas and materials

Searching the Web

  • Google - The premier search engine. Try the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which takes you straight to a leading home page for any author or topic specified. Or do a standard search.
  • Open Directory Project - a comprehensive directory of the Web, maintained by humans, not machines. The editors are volunteers who have come forward, each to edit a category. A category can be as small as single author. As of 7/18/01 the Henry James category, having no editor, was in some disarray.
  • Bedford/St. Martin's links to Web sites - Unlike most sites, this one discriminatingly selects, evaluates, and describes the leading Web sites for critical theorists, novelists, poets, dramatists, essayists, and literary periods. Links to primary texts and critical articles. Study questions on each genre. Interactive tutorials on research techniques, Web searches, and using library catalogues on the Web. For composition, history, political science, etc., try http://www.bedfordstmartins. We list this site under three categories so that you won't miss it.
  • Yahoo - turns up fewer irrelevancies than AltaVista, WebCrawler, Excite, Lycos, and HotBot
  • InfoSeek
  • WebCrawler
  • AltaVista - unabridged: can deliver millions of items per search, even answers to such natural-language queries as "Why is the ocean salty?" (News Note, 3/1/99: The AltaVista search engine is now much improved and worth the scholar's serious attention. Henry James (1843-1916) has moved to the top of AltaVista's list of 16,586 "hits" for the query "Henry James." This puts him, at last, in a position ahead of Henry James Grinder, now relegated to 49 "hits," beginning at number 25. Henry James Grinder is a much-photographed dog.) (News update, 4/26/03: AltaVista continues to improve. The searcher who wants everything and who is willing to dig through the chaff will be rewarded. Hits for Henry James the novelist at last predominate; and Henry James Grinder, perhaps embarrassed, has retreated out of sight.)
  • Lycos, HotBot
  • Excite
  • About.com
  • Uses humans, not automated Web crawlers, to find new Web sites, says The New York Times. To save time with About.com, instead of entering your query in the "search box," experiment with clicking on topics to narrow down your search. For example, Arts/Humanities>Literature Classic>American Authors>Henry James
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General information about the Web

Writing for the Web: HTML and HTML software




Richard D. Hathaway, Professor Emeritus of English
SUNY New Paltz
New Paltz, NY 12561, USA

I am not aware of Henry James materials on the Web that are not referred to above.

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Page last updated February 1, 2004