Henry James (1843-1916)
Autograph letter signed ('Henry James') to Gertrude Bloede, 131 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, 28 December 1882
Four pages, 205 x 127mm. Envelope. Provenance: James Gilvarry – Christie's New York, 7 March 1986, lot 147.

On his father's death, and the hunt for a missing letter. James thanks the recipient for a letter of condolence: 'my Father's generous nature & his brilliant mind made him quite dear to us as his letters to you may have suggested. His life had been very beneficent, but he was waiting for death, & it came to him in a painless & tranquil form. His life was complete & now he has nothing to lose'. The remainder of the text is concerned with the search for a letter which James's father had evidently promised to return to Gertrude Bloede: 'As regards the letter you speak of, you may be sure that if it is found among his papers, it shall immediately be restored to you'; James warns however that 'it is very possible the letter may not be found. He destroyed a large number of letters, in a very summary fashion, shortly before his death, & it may be that the document you speak of was among them. ... he forgot many things during the last two or three years of his life ... [The letter] will have strayed into the wrong drawer, & not been recognised – he was too ill for that, at the moment of the sacrifice ... I am touched by your valuing so much this memento of my father'.

James's father, the theologian Henry James Sr (1811-1882), had been much affected over last year of his life by the death of his wife, Mary, on 29 January. He died on 18 December, the day that Henry Jr's ship docked in New York on his way back from Europe to see him. The recipient, Gertrude Bloede (1845-1905), was a poet who published under the name Stuart Sterne. Complete Letters, 1880-1883 (2017), vol. 2, 273-4, preserving a number of mis-readings and omissions from the previous auction description.