Publisher's Synopsis
"Henry James and Revision" investigates what drove James, at the height of his powers, to turn from the creation of new fiction to the rewriting of his past works for the definitive New York Edition of his novels and tales (1907-9). His anxious scutiny of what he had written across his long career - up to 36 years before - led sometimes to rejection but more often to a renewed imaginative intimacy with the creations of his old self, expressed in the intensive verbal revision of his texts. The book both examines the revision of particular works, which often throw light on interpretative controversies (as with "The Portrait of a Lady" and "Daisy Miller") and attends to questions of principle raised by the paradoxical processes of the reviser. Using much new material, it tells the painful but impressive story of James's lifelong struggle for perfection and illuminates his genius as a framer of sentences and a master of dramatic nuance. James's engagement with revision is connected with every other aspect of his achievement.
