The American an authoritative text backgrounds and sources criticism

Synopsis

The textual history of the novel is traced in A Note on the Text; alist of substantive variants and emendations; a facsimile manuscriptpage showing James's method of revision; and a list of the installmentsof the novel as they appeared in The Atlantic.

"Backgrounds and Sources" includes relevant extracts from correspondence,reviews, and articles by James and others, and from his Notebooks andHawthorne.

"Contemporary Reception" of the novel is illustrated by twenty-oneAmerican and English reviews.

"Twentieth-Century Criticism" is represented in essays by Leon Edel,Oscar Cargill, Irving Howe, Richard Poirier, Royal A. Gettmann, andJames W. Tuttleton.

A Selected Bibliography is included for further study.