![]() ![]() ![]() In addition to providing him with both an intellectual and emotional grounding, they also gave him access to some of the highest levels of British society. Alan James draws from a wide variety of sources including a host of other letters by Henry James to illuminate the complex relationships between James and the Wolseleys which evolved as their friendship progressed. He argues that despite political differences, stemming from issues like Lord Wolseley’s leadership during the Boer War, and the complexities of social interaction in late Victorian Britain, James and the Wolselys maintained a strong friendship. Alan James argues that Lady Wolseley, in particular, was an adept socialite as well as a voracious bibliophile and thus a consummate ally and confidante for Henry James. James’s brilliant editorial work serves to disprove this and reveals the tremendous complexity, not only of Henry James’s relationship to the Wolseleys, but also of elite British society in the late nineteenth century. His efforts add a new depth to not only the study of Henry James, a field already crowded with biographies and a host of other published collections of the man’s correspondence, but to the larger understanding of the relationships which defined British political and social developments.Ĭomprised of 112 letters, almost exclusively from James to the Wolseleys as James destroyed all but two of their responses, the collection demonstrates that, while the Wolseleys were far from the only people James enjoyed extensive correspondence with, their friendship did serve an important role in his life. Whenever a collection of letters as incomplete and seemingly arcane as those between the novelist Henry James and Lord and Lady Wolseley is published, it gives the impression of academic segmentation run amuck. Alan G. Reviewed by Perry Colvin (Auburn University) The Master, the Modern Major General, and His Clever Wife: Henry James's Letters to Field Marshal Lord Wolseley and Lady Wolseley, 1878-1913.Ĭharlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. ![]()
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