Confidence

The first fully annotated edition of this neglected Henry James novel, providing rich sociohistorical context and textual history.

Henry James (Author), Gert Buelens (Edited by)

9781107086517, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 August 2025

536 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 3.3 cm, 0.9 kg

The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James provides, for the first time, a scholarly edition of a major writer whose work continues to be read, quoted, adapted and studied. Confidence is one of James's least-known novels, but its handling of point of view and the ethics of observing other people, its succession of often vividly-evoked settings – Siena, Baden-Baden, New York City, Paris, London – and its fascinating similarities to other of James's works make it deserving of serious attention. The story of its composition, publication and reception is also told here, illuminating how James negotiated his establishment as a major writer, including a readiness for radical revision at the manuscript stage. At its heart, Confidence offers a compelling portrait of a deracinated group of leisured Americans in a new era of global travel, tracing the twists and turns of a moral-psychological experiment in relations between the sexes.

General editors' preface
General chronology of James's life and writings
Introduction
Textual introduction
Chronology of composition and production
Bibliography
Confidence
Glossary of foreign words and phrases
Notes
Textual variants
List of emendations
Appendix: extract from James's notebooks.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]