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 PREFACE

The five stories in this volume, together with the four included in "A Landscape Painter," appeared originally in American periodicals, but for some unknown reason were never issued by Henry James in book form in this country. The present volume, along with "A Landscape Painter," makes accessible to the American public the nine short stories of Henry James which hitherto have been accessible only in English editions of his works.

I hardly need to emphasize the literary value of the stories in this volume—all of them written later than "A Landscape Painter." Both critics and public have expressed surprise at the amazing precocity of Henry James as shown in the tales of "A Landscape Painter," all of which were written before the author was twenty-five. The stories in the present collection are more mature in matter, yet they retain his earlier simplicity of style. Two of them were written when he was almost verging towards "the middle years."

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