FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Cindy Workman (402) 280-2969[email protected]
LOAN TO CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY EXPANDS COLLECTION OF CENTER FOR HENRY JAMES STUDIES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 13, 2000
OMAHA, Neb. -- He's regarded as one of the most important literary figures in the history of U.S. culture. But how much do we know about Henry James?
Thanks to a collection of James Family Papers on loan to Creighton University's Center for Henry James Studies, scholars and other family members will now have access to the lives of Henry and his brother and William.
Who took care of Henry during the last few weeks of his life? What was his sister-in-law's reaction to the outpouring of sympathy at Henry's death? What was Henry's relationship to his brother's children? The answers to these questions are just some of the gems included in the James Family Papers archive at Creighton University.
The documents, on loan from Bay James, the great-granddaughter of William James, contain much information about the James family that has been seen by only a few scholars. Bay James loaned the papers to Creighton to preserve and protect them as well as to make them available in a central location for family members and scholars.
"That she loaned these documents to Creighton's Center for the Study of Henry James speaks volumes of her trust in me and the university to care for these items," said Greg Zacharias, Ph.D., director of the Center for Henry James Studies.
The center, with four editors working together, will edit the complete letters of Henry James to be published by the University of Nebraska Press in approximately 30 volumes, on DVD and in an Internet-accessible form. The first 400 of the letters are scheduled to appear in 2001. The final volume is scheduled for 2016.
About 25 percent of James' letters are in print today, the bulk of them published in a four-volume series edited by Leon Edel and published by Harvard University Press. Careful comparison between the letter manuscripts and Edel's edition reveals numerous discrepancies. The editors at the Center are compiling an ongoing list of those discrepancies.
"For many years, Professor Edel controlled all access to the James papers and consequently all information about the James family. The Center, with copies of the more than 10,000 letters, and now the James Family Papers, hopes to revolutionize James studies for scholars," said Zacharias.
Little is known about James, who 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 as expression of a nation's artistic production.
"A complete collection of the letters to more than 1,000 individuals will enrich our understanding of Henry James' importance to our cultural legacy. It will allow us to see how his life influenced his writing as well," said Zacharias. Currently, James's letters are held in 132 known archives and private collections in the United States, England and elsewhere, making it expensive and in the case of private collections, impossible to gain access to the letters.
"Letters from later in James' life, many never published before, show a man who is more humane and more involved in the day-to-day affairs of his friends, family and neighbors than we have been led to believe in the past," said Zacharias.
The letters and the Center for Henry James Studies at Creighton will constitute a unique and significant resource for students, teachers, scholars of Henry James and also those of American and European history and culture of the late 19th century. The center welcomes contributions, which are tax deductible, to its library, in the form of books, collections and offprints.
To learn more about the Center for Henry James Studies contact Dr. Greg Zacharias at (402) 280-5714 or by email at [email protected].
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