Theodora Bosanquet was Henry James’s secretary from 1907 until his death in 1916, one of the most significant periods of his long writing career. Her memoir
Henry James at Work , originally published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press in 1924, recounts Bosanquet’s association with James and provides a lively and engaging commentary on James’s milieu, preferences, and attitudes, as well as on his process of writing and revision. Bosanquet is an intelligent and observant witness and reporter, and her objective and comparatively unbiased point of view makes the memoir especially valuable. This enlarged and annotated edition rescues Bosanquet from the shadows of literary history and shows her to be a fascinating figure in her own right, a skilled writer and editor, an early feminist, and a contemporary of the Bloomsbury literary community. The book is also enhanced by an essay about Bosanquet and her circle, and fascinating snippets from her diaries and letters, now in the Harvard University archives.