about the world in which he lived. I consider it an act of enormous generosity
that in preparing this volume--a labor that required enviable energy as well as
great knowledge--Robert Gale has allowed us to share in his deep Jamesian
saturation. I have found myself reading sequentially through the manuscript of
the encyclopedia, discovering instruction and illumination on every page. Com-
ing to the entry on Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz, for example, I remembered
the few James titles I have examined in Tauchnitz editions and the Tauchnitz
volumes that figure in his fiction (in The Reverberator, for instance, and in The
Wings of the Dove), but I did not know, until I read the entry, the name of the
series in which these books appeared (the Tauchnitz Collection of British and
American Authors), the starting date of the series ( 1841), the fact that the volumes
were not sold in England (to protect copyright there), and that between 1878
and 1912 Tauchnitz republished sixteen books by Henry James. Nor had I
remembered that, as Gale observes, "In 'The Third Person' James has Amy
Frush smuggle an illegal Tauchnitz into England to appease the ghost of an
ancestor hanged for more serious smuggling." The encyclopedist says in his
Preface that he almost never "offers any critical insights, since this is a reference
book." Happily, this determination does not entail the suspension of judgment
or the eradication of the author's distinctive character. Besides delighting in
innumerable tidbits of knowledge such as the facts on Tauchnitz, I have found
considerable pleasure in the personal savor of such Gale judgments as the pungent
dismissal of James play "The Album" as "this wretched drama" and the just
as tenable praise of "The Pupil" as "one of the finest short stories ever written."
In sum, if I may presume to say so on behalf of Jamesians everywhere, present
and to come, thank you, Bob, for having created this essential resource, the
Henry James Encyclopedia, a monumental job, superbly done.

DANIEL MARK FOGEL
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

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