Beschreibung:

JAMES, Henry -- STEVENSON, Robert Louis. Weir of Herminston, an unfinished romance , London, Chatto and Windus, 1896, 8°, FIRST EDITION, WITH A 4PP. A.L.S. FROM HENRY JAMES TO [SIDNEY] COLVIN REGARDING THE BOOK LOOSELY-INSERTED, original blue cloth, spine titled in gilt. The letter, dated 34, De Vere Gardens, W., Thursday [? 4 July, 1895], reads: "My dear Colvin, I return you the enclosed on the spot with immense thanks. I am starting for poor Huxley's funeral -- & am too pressed to write the letter you ask me for this a.m. But I will do it tomorrow a.m. & you shall have it dans la journée. I assume that I must frankly appear to have read Hermiston : ½ the force is -- will be -- in that. The letters of these poor women infinitely touching & interesting Mrs Strong's light on the remainder so suggestive, so stirring that it breaks one's heart -- ! Poor wrecked creatures, clinging (the 2 women) to those faint figments as to clutched spars in a great weltering sea! The question of the dedication seems to me very difficult. One can't put (an expressed) dedication into those dead lips. It is a question of saying either 'He was to have dedicated it to me.' -- or 'We dedicate it -- knowing his intention.' But I will write tomorrow." The question of the dedication may relate to R.L. Stevenson's Letters to his Family and Friends which Colvin was then editing. James's relationship with Stevenson is fully discussed in Janet Adam Smith's Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson , London, 1948 (included in the next lot).