Abstract
One of James’s best known and perhaps most important ghost stories, his “dream of the Louvre,” comes not from a published tale or novel but first from his most private writing (his notebooks) and then from the private-gone-public autobiographical volume A Small Boy and Others. The migration of the story from James’s private conversation with himself in the notebook entry to the publication of his memoir is significant because it serves as an emblem of how the ghostly functions in James as a conversion from the very private to the very public. In addition, there seems to be something fundamentally therapeutic for James in the conversion process that signals James’s conversation with his past and provides him with a way to understand that experience.
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Notes
Henry James, The Complete Notebooks, ed. Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 318.
Henry James, A Small Boy and Others (New York: Scribner’s, 1913), 346.
William Righter, American Memory in Henry James, ed. Rosemary Righter (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 6.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 4 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), 164–65, 331.
Henry James, The Wings of the Dove in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 19 (New York: Scribner’s, 1909), 4, 5.
David McWhirter, “‘A Provision Full of Responsibilities’: Senses of the Past in Henry James’s Fourth Phase,” in Enacting History in Henry James, ed. Gert Buelens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 148–65 (152–53).
Henry James to Henry (Harry) James III, in Henry James’s Letters, ed. Leon Edel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974–84), 4:800.
Henry James, Notes of a Son and Brother (New York: Scribner, 1914), 266.
Henry James, The American Scene (London: Chapman and Hall, 1907).
Henry James, Preface, What Maisie Knew, “In the Cage,” “The Pupil,” in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 8 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxii (vi).
Henry James, Essays on Literature: American Writers, English Writers (New York: Library of America, 1984), 956.
Peter Rawlings, Henry James and the Abuse of the Past (New York: Palgrave, 2005), 11.
Henry James, Preface, Roderick Hudson, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 1 (New York: Scribner’s, 1907), v–xx (v).
Henry James, Preface The American, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 2 (New York: Scribner’s, 1907), v–xxiii (v).
Henry James, Preface, The Portrait of a Lady, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vols. 3–4 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxi (vi–vii).
Henry James, Preface, The Princess Casamassima, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vols. 5–6 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxiii (v).
Henry James, Preface, The Tragic Muse, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vols. 7–8 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxii (vii, ix).
Alfred Habegger, “New York Monumentalism and Hidden Family Corpses,” in Henry James’s New York Edition: The Construction of Authorship, ed. David McWhirter (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 185–205 (185).
Henry James, Preface, The Awkward Age, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 9 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxiv (viii).
Henry James, Preface, The Spoils of Poynton, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 10 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxiv (v).
Henry James, Preface, The Aspern Papers, The Turn of the Screw, “The Liar,” “The Two Faces,” in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 12 (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), v–xxiv (x).
Henry James, Preface, “The Lesson of the Master,” “The Death of the Lion,” “The Next Time,” and Other Tales, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 15 (New York: Scribner’s, 1909), v–xviii (v).
Henry James, Preface to The Wings of the Dove, in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vols. 19–20 (New York: Scribner’s, 1909), v–xxiii (xix).
Ross Posnock, The Trial of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of Modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1988, 1.
Julie Rivkin, “Speaking with the Dead: Ethics and Representation in The Aspern Papers,” The Henry James Review 10, no. 2 (1989): 135–41 (136).
Henry James, “Is there a Life after Death?,” in Henry James on Culture, ed. Pierre A. Walker (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 115–27 (115).
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© 2011 Anna Despotopoulou and Kimberly C. Reed
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Zacharias, G. (2011). “The Complexion of Ever so Long Ago”. In: Despotopoulou, A., Reed, K.C. (eds) Henry James and the Supernatural. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119840_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119840_2
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