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Lyail H. Powers, ed. Henry James and Edith Wharton, Letters: 1900 - 1915. New York: Scribners, 1990. 412 pages. $29.95.
In 1985 Wharton scholars received the gift of The Library Chronicle (31:1985) featuring Edith Wharton's love letters to Morton Fullerton edited by Alan Gribben and accompanied by insightful essays by Gribben and Clare Colquitt. The invaluable The Letters of Edith Wharton edited by R.W.B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis (New York: Scribners, 1988) followed, ig- niting a celebratory spark in the theme of letters at the Edith Wharton-in-New York conference (October, 1988). That, in turn, has lit other fires in probable future publications of additional essays on the subject of Edith Wharton and her letters. In 1990 these major works of scholarship were joined by another, Henry James and Edith Wharton, Letters: 1900-1915, edited by Lyall H. Powers.
Although Edith Wharton receives equal' billing with Henry James in the title, apparently only eight letters and five postcards from Edith Wharton to Henry James sur- vive along with thirty-six from Wharton to James's amanuensis, Theodora Bosanquet, mostly concerning James's health. For all practical purposes the book is an impeccably edited collection of the letters of Henry James to Edith Wharton. The correspondence is beautifully in- troduced from the point of view of a scholar who is undeniably a deeply learned James expert.
Naturally, it is not surprising that the weight of the text and its excellent introduction emphasize Cher Maître. (Perhaps this is a good place to recall that Wharton used the same saluation when writing to Bernard Berenson.) The author's understandable preference for James over Wharton is not disguised, the introduction focussing as it does on how "James was helpful in introducing Whar- ton to the beau monde of...