Autograph letter signed from the celebrated American-born writer who spent much of his literary career in England and who remains best known for his novels exploring Victorian manners and morals, including such classics as Washington Square, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl, arranging a meeting with an old friend (full text below). 3 pp. of a bifolium, on letterhead of the Breakers, Palm Beach, dated Wednesday [...] 2:45 [February 1905?]. The letter has been mounted on the back free endpaper of the 1934 publication about the James brothers and their sister Alice's diaries. Also laid down to internal pages of the book are several original and early reproduction photographs of members of the James family, as follows: halftone photograph of Henry James, mounted on the front free endpaper; CDV of Henry James as a younger man mounted on the half-title, with the note "taken at Baker Street studio in London"; CDV of Garth Wilkinson James mounted on the following page, with the note "taken in Milwaukee - Wis"; later postcard photograph of Robertson James mounted on the title page of the introduction; and a later postcard photograph of William James mounted on p. 83. The front pastedown bears the ownership signature of Gertrude S. Bean, dated Milwaukee, August 1934. Blue boards with gilt lettering. Light shelf wear to the binding; some internal areas of toning; light toning and folding creases to the letter; overall in fine condition. 253 pp. 5.75 x 8.75 inches (15 x 22 cm).

Full text of the autograph letter:

"Dear Captain Bean,

I am afraid I shall miss you--& I don't want to miss you--unless I take this means of putting my hand upon you. (If we trust to mutual chance recognition, after all these years & in this crowd, we may fail altogether.) Therefore I shall be in the central hall here at ten and [...] the dining room from 6:50 this evening. Call about 7:10, when I am about to dine with some friends. If you are able to look out for me then & there, I think I shall know you & you will perhaps remember me a little better if I tell you that since we met so long ago in Milwaukee in poor dear Wilkie's lifetime I have grown bald-- & fat & shaved off my beard! But only show yourself and I will take care of the rest! 

Yours very truly, Henry James"

Henry James stayed at the Breakers in Palm Beach in February 1905 on a trip around the South.

Alice James: Her Brothers, Her Journal was the first biographical work about the lesser-known James brothers, Robertson (Bob) and Garth Wilkinson (Wilkie), commissioned by Robertson's daughter Mary James Vaux and written by Anna Robeson Burr. Compared to the literary and scholarly successes of elder brothers Henry and William, Bob and Wilkie's lives seem to have characterized by misfortune. After fighting in the Civil War, they tried and failed to run a Florida plantation, before both moving to Milwaukee, where they became railway clerks. Wilkie struggled with alcoholism and other personal crises before dying at the age of 38. The owner of the book and recipient of the letter appears to have been a friend of the James family in Milwaukee.