The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Further reading: The letters are important, if you find yourself interested in Adams. Worthington Chauncey Ford has edited three volumes of them: A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-1865; Letters of Henry Adams 1858-1891; Letters of Henry Adams i8q2-iqi8. The definitive biography (a fine one) is Ernest Samuels's three-volume life: The Young Henry Adams; Henry Adams: The Middle Years; Henry Adams: The Major Phase. Other admirable studies: J.C. Levenson, The Mind and Art of Henry Adams; Elizabeth Stevenson, Henry Adams: A Biography; R.A.

Hume, Runaway Star: An Appreciation of Henry Adams; William Dusinberre, Henry Adams: The Myth of Failure.

Thomas Hardy—Various editions of the most famous novйis— Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure, Return of the Native, Tess of the DVrbervilles—are widely available. Complete Poems: Macmillan. The Dynasts (3 vols. hardbound; St. Martins); Wessex Tales (St. Martins).

Further reading: The official life is by Florence E. Hardy, now in one volume: The Early Life of Hardy, 1840-1891 and The Later Years; 1892-1928. Professor Guerard's introduction to The Mayor of Casterbridge is excellent. See also Lord David Cecil, Hardy, the Novelist; Douglas Brown, Thomas Hardy; Virginia Woolf s essay in The Second Common Reader; Robert Gittings, Young Thomas Hardy and Thomas Hardy's Later Years; Irving Howe, Thomas Hardy.

William James—Dover publishes The Principies of Psychology (2 vols.); Pragmatism is issued by Meridian and Harvard University Press; The Varieties of Religious Experience by Collier and Mentor. The Library of Amйricas two-volume set contains ali of the major works.

Further reading: The basic account is Ralph Barton Perrys The Thought and Character of William James (2 vols., Harvard U. Press), of which there is a good one-volume abridgement (Braziller). See also: Jacques Barzun, A Stroll with William James; C.H. Grattan, The Three Jameses; Gay Wilson Allen, William James; G. Santayanas chapter on James in Character and Opinion in the United States; R.B. Perry, In the Spirit of William James. The Letters of William James have been edited by his son Henry in two volumes; and his brother, Henry, offers Notes of a Son and Brother. For the family life of William and Henry, see Alfred Habegger, The Father: A Life of Henry James Sr., and R.W.B. Lewis, The James, A Family Narrative.

Henry James—The Ambassadors: Many editions; the Riverside is edited by Leon Edel, the master of James scholarship. Penguin has a Portable Henry James. Perennial offers Great Short Works. The Library of America publishes nearly ali of the important novйis, travei writings, criticism, and stories in nine big volumes. If you're hooked on Henry James, try The Complete Notebooks of Henry James, ed. Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers (Oxford U. Press). U. of Nebraska Press is about to begin publishing the Complete Letters.

Further reading: One of the great biographies of our time is Leon EdePs The Life of Henry James (5 vols.). For the best commentator on Henry James, see his own The Art of the Novel. Other excellent studies: F.W. Dupee, Henry James; F.O. Matthiessen, Henry James: The Major Phase and The James Family: A Group Biography ;

Edmund Wilson in The Triple Thinkers; Gordon Pirie, Henry James; F.R. Leavis, The Great Tradition; Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius. Sheldon M. Novick, in Henry James: The Young Master, makes the controversial claim that James was actively homosexual. See also a study of The Princess Casamassima in Lionel Trillings highly recommended The Liberal Imagination.