Henry James, The Harpers, and The American Scene

Abstract

fHE first English edition of Henry James's major travel book, X The American Scene, was published by Chapman and Hall on 30 January I907, and was followed by the first American edition, Harper and Brothers, 7 February I907. Even though both publishers used the same set of corrected page proofs (the Harpers apparently used a duplicate copy1), the American edition is a seriously corrupted text. Corruptions are most visible in the deletion of the numbered divisions within chapters, in the absence of the running heads composed by James, and in the exclusion of the entire last section of the book, section VII of the chapter on Florida. The editors of later editions of The American Scene-W.H. Auden in I946, Irving Howe in I967, and Leon Edel in I968-have all recognized the authority of the English edition, but only now with the availability of The Archives of Harper and Brothers I8I7-I9I4 can the mystery of the modifications in the American edition be solved.2 The history of the American edition is a history of confusion, ineptitude, mismanagement, and faulty communication, a comedy of errors to which Henry