Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/11

 PREFACE

, one of the two novels which Henry James left unfinished at his death, was designed to consist of ten books. Three only of these were written, with one chapter of the fourth, and except for the correction of a few obvious slips the fragment is here printed in full and without alteration. It was composed during the summer of 1914. The novel seems to have grown out of another which had been planned by Henry James in the winter of 1909–10. Of this the opening scenes had been sketched and a few pages written when it was interrupted by illness. On taking it up again, four years later, Henry James almost entirely recast his original scheme, retaining certain of the characters (notably the Bradham couple,) but otherwise giving an altogether fresh setting to the central motive. The new novel had reached the point where it breaks off by the beginning of August 1914. With the outbreak of war Henry James found he could no longer work upon a fiction supposed to represent contemporary or recent life. The completed chapters—which he had dictated to his secretary, in accordance with his regular habit for many years past—were revised and laid aside, not again to be resumed. v