. . . . . . . . . . . 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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS of "the Henry James scholar's Guide to Web Sites"
  • # Henry James etexts at New Paltz
  • # The Henry James E-Journal
  • # Cornell's Making of America image library
  • # Writings about (and by) Henry James, including film reviews
  • # Henry James etexts at other sites; Concordance
  • # Alternatives to the above Henry James etexts
  • # Finding other etexts
  • # WebMuseum, Paris - full-screen paintings in gorgeous color
  • # JamesF-L: an on-line discussion group
  • # Henry James conferences, Calls for papers
  • # The Henry James Review; Henry James Society; Henry James letters and papers
  • # 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
  • # An on-line language translator
  • # Libraries, reference resources, books for sale
  • # Teaching: ideas and materials
  • # Using the World Wide Web

    • 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.
    • Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Periodicals - Provided by the Library of Congress, this search engine is another way, which some may find more user-friendly, of accessing not only the Cornell image library, but other images.

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

    Henry James etexts at other sites; Concordance

    • Henry James etexts at Adrian Dover's the Ladder - Annotations of the works and a concordance add to the interest of this excellent site. The following list may be incomplete, as Adrian Dover often 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 Altar of the Dead; The Beldonald Holbein; The Bench of Desolation; The Birthplace; Broken Wings; Brooksmith; Collaboration; Covering End; Crapy Cornelia; A Day of Days; Flickerbridge; Fordham Castle; Georgina's Reasons; The Given Case; The Great Condition; John Delavoy; Julia Bride; Lady Barberina; The Last of the Valerii; The Liar; A Light Man; A London Life; Lord Beaupr'e; Louisa Pallant; Master Eustace; Maud-Evelyn; Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie; The Modern Warning; Mora Montravers; Mrs. Medwin; Mrs. Temperly; Owen Wingrave; The Papers; The Path of Duty; Poor Richard; The Private Life; The Real Right Thing; Rose Agatha; A Round of Visits; Sir Edmund Orme; The Solution; The Special Type; The Story in It; The Third Person; The Tone of Time; The Tree of Knowledge; The Turn of the Screw; 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) - Clicking on this link will take you to a Robert Louis Stevenson Web page. Then, in order to get to "The Art of Fiction," you will have to erase the words "rls.htm" in the URL Address line on your browser and replace them by "essays/james.htm" -- an awkward procedure, but that's the way this site seems to work.
    • "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)
    • 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://www.gutenberg.org" but you may find the "Online Books" gateway to Project Gutenberg convenient to use because it lists additional titles by James and alternative Web sites. 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.

    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 and UNSUBSCRIBE will facilitate getting them to the correct address.
      The sample-posting topics include "THE TURN OF THE SCREW," "HENRY JAMES' GERMAN ESSAYS," and "HENRY JAMES AND HOMO-EROTIC DESIRE."

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

    Henry James conference announcements and calls for papers

    • Announcements of conferences, Calls for papers, relating to Henry James - supplied by The Henry James Review
    • Henry James Society International Conference, Newport, Rhode Island, July 9-13, 2008 
    • NEW: The Henry James Society seeks papers for two sessions at the 2008 San
Francisco MLA, one on Jamesian cities and the other on James and scale. 250
word abstracts and short cv's to Julie Rivkin, President, Henry James
Society, by 15 March. (julie.rivkin@conncoll.edu).
    • NEW: Henry James and Publicity
      Papers are invited on any aspect of Henry James and publicity; and there is an opportunity to arrange intersections between these papers and the theme of the convention: Fame/Infamy. Please send a title, abstract (300 words), and short vitae as an e-mail attachment to rawlings2000@aol.com by April 15, 2008 at the latest.
      Peter Rawlings, Department of English, University of the West of England, Bristol

    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 $35 includes membership in the James Society. The Executive Director is Greg W. Zacharias, Creighton University, (gwzach@creighton.edu). The current President is Pierre A. Walker (anderwalk@earthlink.net).
    • Transcriptions of Early Letters to Henry James - These letters, in the Houghton Library at Harvard, have never been published before and will probably never be available in book form. The editor for this site, "dearhenryjames.org", is Pierre A. Walker, Professor of English at Salem State College and co-general editor of the Complete Letters of Henry James (email: "editor@dearhenryjames.org"). The letters are transcribed by Pierre Walker, Jamie Jamieson, and Jay S. Spina.
    • Henry James complete-letters project - a project at Creighton University, Nebraska, to collect and publish copies of all of Henry James's letters.
    • The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1855-1872 - edited by Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias - advertisement for the first two volumes, U of Nebraska Press, 2006.
    • Henry James correspondence and journals at the Houghton Library - a listing by date and correspondent of 2221 letters at Harvard's Houghton Library, catalogued under the call number bMS Am 1094, (about half of the Houghton Library's collection of Henry James's manuscript letters). plus 16 volumes of diaries and appointment books. Includes correspondence of Alice James.
    • Letters to Henry James from Robert Louis Stevenson - complete texts of the 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

    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.
    • 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.
    • 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

    • 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.
    • The Heath Anthology of American Literature Page - ideas for teaching with the World Wide Web - Also has many many links to Web sites for American authors, organized by this anthology's table of contents.
    • Al Filreis, University of Pennsylvania - a quite varied collection of literary links to browse in
    • A Princeton course in the American Renaissance

    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
    • 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


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    Page last updated February 16, 2008