The Revision Of Roderick Hudson

Extract

In an interesting paper which appeared in March, 1924, Miss Hélène Harvitt discussed “How Henry James Revised Roderick Hudson.” The investigations on which this article was based were made in Paris where original American editions were presumably not available, for we are told that “All quotations from the revised version of Roderick Hudson refer to the Macmillan edition of 1921, those from the first edition, to that of 1883 (2 vols).” If the author had been able to refer to an American edition published after 1882, she would have noticed the two copyrights (one issued to the publishers in 1875, and one to the author in 1882) and the “Note” (which has a page to itself): ‘Roderick Hudson’ was originally published in 1875. It has now been minutely revised, and has received a large number of verbal alterations. Several passages have been rewritten.“ That is, she would have seen that the text which she quotes throughout her article as from the first edition, comes in reality from a thoroughly revised later version.