Book Alert / Henry James At Work

Henry James At Work by Theodora Bosanquet, Edited with Notes and  Introductions by  Lyall H. Powers, UMichigan Press '06, $29.95, 142 pages, ISBN #0472115715, Index, grouping of b&w glossy images.

Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press originally published Bosanquet's memoir in 1924, and the University of Michigan Press demonstrates, in republishing, enlarging and annotating it, a crucial function of the university press -- to focus in on lesser lights, who might not have the commercial potential for a trade biography but who, nevertheless, are important in their own right.

Theodora Bosanquet was 27 when she became secretary to novelist Henry James, then 64. In her eight years with him, she showed herself not only to be a resourceful helpmate to the iconic author but "a skilled writer and editor, an early feminist and a contemporary of the Bloomsbury literary community." After her employ with James, she went on to publish two of her own books, critical studies on Harriet Martineau and Paul Valery, and became a prominent figure in the woman's suffrage movement.

In addition to republishing Bosanquet's memoir, UMichigan Press has added an essay about her and her circle of professional and personal friends and snippets from her diaries and letters, now in the Harvard University archives.