Henry James: Unusually amorous

As readers of the volume of letters began to note the unusually amorous tone in some of her brother-in-law's missives to younger men, Alice Gibbens James, steadfast and loyal to the end, wrote to her son: "People are putting a vile interpretation on those silly letters to young men. -- Poor dear Uncle Henry."

          --From a review by Colm Tóibín of Alice in Jamesland: The Story of Alice Howe Gibbens James (2009), by Susan E. Gunter. Published in the New York Review of Books, 11 June 2009. Alice Gibbens James was the wife of William James (1842-1910) and sister-in-law of Henry James (1843-1916) and Alice James (1848-1892). Above: a portrait of Henry James by Max Beerbohm.