Overview

Full Product Details

9781846318627

Table of Contents

Reviews

Supino traces in unprecedented detail the lineaments of James's authorial career and the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the publishing houses on both sides of the Atlantic that produced and sold his writings. This exemplary work is a model of integrative scholarly method, powerfully combining close bibliographical scrutiny of particular textual artifacts with the archival recovery of book-historical information in as much detail as the surviving documents allow. This book is essential reading not only for students of Henry James, but also for all those who would understand the publishing history of his era as well. -- Michael F. Suarez This is a remarkable book based on an outstanding collection, formed by David Supino with great bibliographical sophistication. He has understood the importance of all kinds of variants and reprints and of what can be revealed by careful physical descriptions of them. The present revision is particularly noteworthy for its amazingly extensive reports of information from publishers' archives. The result is the most detailed account of the printing and publishing of James's books that we have. -- G. Thomas Tanselle David Supino's already magnificent catalogue of his own unique collection of Henry James editions, a true labour of love, now appears in a form so much fuller it amounts to a different book - a highly original, unignorable resource for study of the printing and publishing history of James's works up to 1921 - not just the first editions - based on painstaking consultation of publishers' records as well as detailed description of the physical volumes. Bibliographers, publishing historians and Jamesians are in his debt for this heroic achievement. -- Philip Horne Review of the first edition: David J Supino's catalogue, with its unique scope and form, breaks much new ground for research into the arcane histories of the publication and revision of Henry James's works. It is moreover a significant contribution to our understanding of the book trade in James's time. Supino's attentiveness to details will be deeply appreciated not only by scholars of Henry James but by readers interested in the history of the book trade. In this invaluable resource for bibliophiles, collectors and James scholars, Supino proves his merit as a bibliographer of the first order. The Library 7.9.1 There is perhaps no better picture of the Anglo-American publishing world from the mid-1870s to the early 1920s in a single volume than David Supino's Henry James: A Bibliographical Catalogue. Supino traces in unprecedented details the lineaments of James's authorial career and the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the publishing houses on both sides of the Atlantic the produced and sold his writings. Supino's exemplary work is a model of integrative scholarly method, powerfully combining close bibliographical scrutiny of particular textual artefacts with the archival recovery of book-historical information in as much detail as the surviving documents allow. Using the Houghton Mifflin Archive, for example, Supino chronicles the US printing history of The American in its original stereotype edition, providing the production dates, press-runs and binding times for the twenty-seven impressions made from 1877 to 1919. He also registers evidence that copies of early impression of this edition were imported into England (and sold for 10s 6d). The bibliography further provides details of an undated English 'piracy' and gives reasons for establishing the likelihood that it preceded the yellowback unauthorized edition, also undated, printed from the same plates. Crucially, Supino is always testing his sources against one another, as when he discovers, for example, a divergence between the documentary evidence in the Houghton Mifflin Archive about the binding of the first two impressions of The American and the evidence produced by scrutinizing the actual publications in their several forms (4.4.0). With the characteristic restraint, Supino posits a likely explanation for this conflict, but then us quick to point out that the available evidence neither confirms nor disproves the account he proposes. Reading further in the same entry, we learn that the Houghton Mifflin 'trade editions' of The American (1922ff), marketed as part of its Riverside Literature Series ('Riverside College Classics'), were made from a duplicate set of pates of the New York Edition (which was owned by the James estate and Scribner's). These and other comparable editions and issues of his novels from the extensively revised New York Edition did more to establish James' posthumous reputation in America than anything else. Supino's transatlantic scholarship enables us to compare the reception of Daisy Miller (1879 [1878]) in the US and UK. The first American edition was published as part of Harper's Half-Hour Series and priced at $.35 in cloth and $.20 in wrappers; in only a few weeks 20,000 copies were sold. The story of the first English edition is just the opposite. Sold in two volumes and priced at 21s, it sold just 285 copies in its first nine months on the market. Tellingly, the American editions quickly became progressively more expensive: the second American edition (issued as part of the Franklin Square Library) cost $.75; the third (1892ff) was priced at $3.50 for the trade issue and $15.00 for the deluxe (limited to 250 copies). Featuring 101 illustrations, expensive paper, a richly decorated binding and an accompanying box, both issues were obviously marketed as a gift book. Antiquarian booksellers and collectors of modern first editions have long accepted the notion that the first impression of the first edition of The Portrait of a Lady (1881) may be recognized by the unique appearance of a full stop immediately following the copyright statement on the title-page verso. The market value of early impressions of the Portrait has depended on this key to identifying the novel's earliest printing, and there are large sums of money and much cultural prestige at stake based on its truth. Yet, Supino's careful study of the first several impressions has enabled him to establish definitively that this bibliographical shibboleth is a false custom - and to produce a reliable test for making a true identification. Now, libraries and private collectors who paid handsomely for what they 'knew' to be a first impression are discovering that what they have is actually something else of rather less monetary value than they had imagined. Others, presumably holding a later impression, are finding themselves pleasantly surprised. 'Expert' antiquarian booksellers and scholars have learned yet again that there is no substitute for sustained engagement with the printed artefacts themselves and immersive attention to a bibliographical or book-historical problem. It is the artful combining of evidence from publishers' archives - e.g. from Macmillan (British Library), Charles Scribner's (Firestone Library, Princeton), Harper and Brothers (Butler Library, Columbia) and Houghton Mifflin (Houghton Library, Harvard), from private papers and correspondence and from the meticulous examination of the books themselves, that makes Supino's bibliography such a wide-ranging and reliable resource. The pages of Henry James: A Bibliographical Catalogue are rich with ore that book historians can and should profitably mine. A good case in point is the index delineating the publication history of each of James's stories and tales, recording the first magazine publication and all subsequent book publications of those narratives from 1875 - 1923. The conspectus of James's career as a writer of short stories and novellas, some 100 in all, appearing in twenty-seven different newspapers and serials (not including piracies) is highly revealing and could easily serve as the foundation for an important book-historical scholarly publication. I feel morally obliged to warn young and old alike the Supino's elegant bibliography is highly addictive; as a great artists' career unfolds, the details are fascinating in themselves, even as they beautifully coalesce to establish a narrative that adds up to far more than the sum of its parts. Supino's study is a fitting place at which to conclude this discussion, because it amply demonstrates what bibliography can do for book history - and what book history can, in turn, accomplish fro bibliography. Generally speaking, bibliographical studies benefit from the social reach of book history, even as book-historical research becomes stronger when it incorporates insights from the bibliography's attention to textual artefacts, which in the best descriptive bibliographies is both close and comprehensive. These related and, often, overlapping areas of historical inquiry should be practised in ways that are mutually informing. Read with care, the descriptive bibliography is a powerful instrument for the book historian's success. The Cambridge Companion to the The History of the Book

Supino traces in unprecedented detail the lineaments of James's authorial career and the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the publishing houses on both sides of the Atlantic that produced and sold his writings. This exemplary work is a model of integrative scholarly method, powerfully combining close bibliographical scrutiny of particular textual artifacts with the archival recovery of book-historical information in as much detail as the surviving documents allow. This book is essential reading not only for students of Henry James, but also for all those who would understand the publishing history of his era as well. -- Michael F. Suarez, S.J. This is a remarkable book based on an outstanding collection, formed by David Supino with great bibliographical sophistication. He has understood the importance of all kinds of variants and reprints and of what can be revealed by careful physical descriptions of them. The present revision is particularly noteworthy for its amazingly extensive reports of information from publishers' archives. The result is the most detailed account of the printing and publishing of James's books that we have. -- G. Thomas Tanselle David Supino's already magnificent catalogue of his own unique collection of Henry James editions, a true labour of love, now appears in a form so much fuller it amounts to a different book - a highly original, unignorable resource for study of the printing and publishing history of James's works up to 1921 - not just the first editions - based on painstaking consultation of publishers' records as well as detailed description of the physical volumes. Bibliographers, publishing historians and Jamesians are in his debt for this heroic achievement. -- Professor Philip Horne Review of the first edition: David J Supino's catalogue, with its unique scope and form, breaks much new ground for research into the arcane histories of the publication and revision of Henry James's works. It is moreover a significant contribution to our understanding of the book trade in James's time. Supino's attentiveness to details will be deeply appreciated not only by scholars of Henry James but by readers interested in the history of the book trade. In this invaluable resource for bibliophiles, collectors and James scholars, Supino proves his merit as a bibliographer of the first order. The Library 7.9.1 200803

From the first edition: David J Supino's catalogue, with its unique scope and form, breaks much new ground for research into the arcane histories of the publication and revision of Henry James's works. It is moreover a significant contribution to our understanding of the book trade in James's time. Supino's attentiveness to details will be deeply appreciated not only by scholars of Henry James but by readers interested in the history of the book trade. In this invaluable resource for bibliophiles, collectors and James scholars, Supino proves his merit as a bibliographer of the first order. The Library 7.9.1 200803

Author Information

Following highly successful careers in law and banking in the US and UK, David J. Supino now works as a bibliographer.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available