UD professor highlights rare Henry James items, including an unpublished 1897 letter

Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities at the University of Delaware, is the author of a newly published article in The Henry James Review, a Johns Hopkins University Press journal.

Titled “Henry James in the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection,” Stetz’s article offers both an overview and a checklist of the significant Henry James materials acquired by Mark Samuels Lasner, senior research fellow at the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press. The essay highlights how these holdings, now accessible through the University of Delaware Library, provide a unique lens into the literary networks and publishing culture surrounding one of the most influential writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Among the treasures discussed is the full text of a previously unpublished, four-page letter written by Henry James in 1897 to British “New Woman” poet Rosamund Marriott Watson. In the letter, James thanks Watson for her praise of his novel The Spoils of Poynton, revealing the author’s characteristic charm and self-awareness.

By combining bibliographic detail with literary insight, Stetz’s work not only illuminates the breadth of the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection but also underscores its continuing value to scholars and students of Victorian and modernist literature.