In his prefaces, James tackles the great problems of fiction writing—character, plot, point of view, inspiration—and explains how he came to write novels such as The Portrait of a Lady and The American. As Blackmur puts it, “criticism has never been more ambitious, nor more useful.”

This collection of prefaces, originally written for the 1909 multi-volume New York Edition of Henry James’s fiction, first appeared in book form in 1934 with an introduction by poet and critic R. P. Blackmur.

Preface to "Roderick Hudson" Preface to "The American" Preface to "The Portrait of a Lady" Preface to "The Princess Casamassima" Preface to "The Tragic Muse" Preface to "The Awkward Age" Preface to "The Spoils of Poynton" Preface to "What Maisie Knew" Preface to "The Aspern Papers" -- Preface to "The Reverberator" -- Preface to "Lady Barbarina" -- Preface to "The Lesson of the Master" -- Preface to" The Author of Beltraffio" -- Preface to "The Alar of the Dead" -- Preface to "Daisy Miller" -- Preface to "The Wings of the Dove" -- Preface to "The Ambassadors" -- Preface to "The Golden Bowl."