Notes of a Son and Brother

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. First edition. One of 3000 copies printed. Edel & Laurence A72a; Supino 72.1.0. Presentation copy, inscribed by James in the month of publication on the front free endaper: "To Mrs. Van Rensselaer, / faithfully, her / old friend, / Henry James / March 1914." James refers to the American expatriate Mrs Philip Livingstone Van Rensselaer in his notebooks and in letters to Lizzie Boott as "The Rensellina" or "The Realist". In a lengthy journal entry on November 25, 1881 James writes an autobiographical review that confirms his decision to live abroad after trips to England and the Continent and mentions meeting Mrs Van Rennsselaer in Venice and Rome, ca. 1880: "Late in the spring came Mrs. V. R., from Rome, who was an even greater resource [greater than Katherine De Kay Bronson of New York and Newport, R. I. who entertained HJ often at her Venetian home and whose "milieu" James describes as "a resource but too American"]. I went with her one day to Torcello and Burano; where we took our lunch and ate it on a lovely canal... Rome was very lovely; I saw a great deal of Mrs. V. R.; had (with her) several beautiful drives. One in particular I remember; out beyond the Ponte Nomentano, a splendid Sunday. We left the carriage and wandered into the fields, where we sat down for some time. The exquisite stillness, the divine horizon, brought back to me out of the buried past all that ineffable, incomparable impression of Rome (1869, 1873)." - The Complete Notebooks of Henry James, Edel & Powers, eds., N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1987, p.222. James' "pocket diaries" record five more meetings with Mrs Van Rensselaer between June 1909 and March 1915. Some light use, otherwise a fine copy. 8vo, frontispiece portrait of William James and illustrations, original cloth, t.e.g. Some light use, otherwise a fine copy.