Henry James:

In THE WINGS OF THE DOVE James was returning to the myth of the sacred woman. For some years the master, Henry James, had been pursued by a formidable woman, Edith Wharton. They did not meet until 1903. She was cosmopolitan, as he was. She caught the histrionic aspect of James. THE GOLDEN BOWL was delivered to Scribners for publication in 1904. There had always been triangles in James's life-- that of his mother, his aunt, and his father, for example. James spent four years in preparing the New York Edition of his work. In this task he saw himself as a sort of American Balzac. They both ended up with the same number of volumes for the collected works, twenty three. James created eighteen prefaces which have had scholarly influence.Hugh Walpole was a young friend of the elderly James.