The Princess Casamassima
The Princess Casamassima
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. Published in three volumes in 1886, The Princess Casamassima follows Hyacinth Robinson, a young London craftsman who carries the stigma of his illegitimate birth, and his French mother's murder of his patrician English father. Deeply impressed by the poverty around him, he is driven to association with political dissidents and anarchists including the charismatic Princess Casamassima - who embodies the problems of personal and political loyalty by which Hyacinth is progressively torn apart. This edition is the first to provide a full account of the context in which the book was composed and received. Extensive explanatory notes enable modern readers to understand its nuanced historical, cultural and literary references, and its complex textual history.
- The first scholarly edition of this major nineteenth-century work explains the significance of the novel's composition and first reception in the context of the time, 1885–6
- An extensive record of textual variants enables readers to trace the compositional process from manuscript to revisions for the New York Edition (1908–9)
- Substantial explanatory notes assist the understanding of historical, cultural and literary references unfamiliar to the modern reader
Product details
May 2025Paperback
9781009662239
963 pages
229 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from May 2025
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- General editors' preface
- General chronology of James's life and writings
- Introduction
- Textual introduction
- Chronology of composition and production
- Bibliography
- The Princess Casamassima
- Glossary of foreign words and phrases
- Notes
- Textual variants
- Emendations
- Appendix: preface to the New York Edition.
