tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly magazine for February 1868. Its initial appearance in book form was as part of the collection A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales published in Boston by Osgood in 1875. This is the first of James’s ghost stories, although unlike his other studies in this genre, his ghost doesn’t make an appearance until the very end of the tale. The family name of Willoughby was changed to Wingrave in later versions of the story.
Woman before Mirror – Jakab Marastoni (1804-1860)
This is the one of four stories James wrote with the American Civil War as a background. The other stories are Poor Richard (1867), The Story of a Year (1865) and A Most Extraordinary Case (1868). James was eligible to serve in the war, but did not. Shortly before being enlisted he sustained a back injury which made him exempt.
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – commentary
The melodramatic and Grand Guignol final scene of this tale was very much in keeping with the fashion for ghost stories which became popular at the end of the nineteenth century. This was a period which gave rise to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890) and Dracula (1897), But James was obviously mainly interested in the subconscious sexual sibling rivalry between the two sisters Viola and Perdita. In particular its vivid manifestation in the scene where Viola actually dresses up in Perdita’s wedding clothes in front of the mirror.
It is a work of James’s period of literary apprenticeship, and he would later make use of the ghost story in far more original ways in works such as Sir Edmund Orme (1891), Owen Wingrave (1892), and his most famous tale, The Turn of the Screw (1898).
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – study resources
The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK
The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US
Complete Stories 1874—1884 – Library of America – Amazon UK
The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK
Complete Stories 1874—1884 – Library of America – Amazon US
Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links
Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – plot summary
Bernard Willoughby returns from Oxford University and travels in France with his college friend Arthur Lloyd, who makes a very positive impression on Bernard’s two sisters, Viola and Perdita. The two girls are in competition for Lloyd’s attention, but conceal the fact from each other and from everybody else.
When eventually Perdita reveals that Lloyd has asked to marry her and has given her a ring, Viola feels wounded but tries to be stoical about her disappointment. But after the wedding, Perdita discovers Viola secretly wearing her wedding clothes.
Lloyd and Perdita settle in Boston, Viola goes away to recover from her disappointment, and then Bernard marries.Perdita gives birth to a daughter, then dies, leaving all her clothes in a locked trunk for her daughter when she grows up.
Viola goes to live with Lloyd to look after her young niece, and Lloyd eventually marries her. Three years later she begins to covet Perdita’s collection of clothes, and she quarrels with Lloyd, who refuses to give them up. However, she gets hold of the key to the locked trunk.
When she fails to appear for dinner one night, Lloyd goes in search of her and finds her in the attic, before the open trunk. She is dead, with the marks of ‘ten hideous wounds from two vengeful ghostly hands’.
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – characters
| Mrs Willoughby | a widow |
| Bernard Willoughby | her son, who becomes a lawyer |
| Viola Willoughby | her eldest daughter, tall, attractive |
| Pedita Willoughby | her younger daughter, small, unattractive |
| Arthur Lloyd | Bernard’s rich English college friend |
Ghost stories by Henry James
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (1868)
The Ghostly Rental (1876)
Sir Edmund Orme (1891)
The Private Life (1892)
Owen Wingrave (1892)
The Friends of the Friends (1896)
The Turn of the Screw (1898)
The Real Right Thing (1899)
The Third Person (1900)
The Jolly Corner (1908)
Further reading
Biographical
Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, University of Michigan Press, 2007.
F.W. Dupee, Henry James: Autobiography, Princeton University Press, 1983.
Leon Edel, Henry James: A Life, HarperCollins, 1985.
Philip Horne (ed), Henry James: A Life in Letters, Viking/Allen Lane, 1999.
Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, Adamant Media Corporation, 2001.
Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999
F.O. Matthieson (ed), The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press, 1988.
Critical commentary
Elizabeth Allen, A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James London: Macmillan Press, 1983.
Ian F.A. Bell, Henry James and the Past, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.
Millicent Bell, Meaning in Henry James, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993.
Harold Bloom (ed), Modern Critical Views: Henry James, Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.
Kirstin Boudreau, Henry James’s Narrative Technique, Macmillan, 2010.
J. Donald Crowley and Richard A. Hocks (eds), The Wings of the Dove, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978.
Victoria Coulson, Henry James, Women and Realism, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Daniel Mark Fogel, A Companion to Henry James Studies, Greenwood Press, 1993.
Virginia C. Fowler, Henry James’s American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas, Madison (Wis): University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Jonathan Freedman, The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Judith Fryer, The Faces of Eve: Women in the Nineteenth Century American Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976
Roger Gard (ed), Henry James: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1968.
Tessa Hadley, Henry James and the Imagination of Pleasure, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Barbara Hardy, Henry James: The Later Writing (Writers & Their Work), Northcote House Publishers, 1996.
Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A study of the short fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James, University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Colin Meissner, Henry James and the Language of Experience, Cambridge University Press, 2009
John Pearson (ed), The Prefaces of Henry James, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
Richard Poirer, The Comic Sense of Henry James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Hugh Stevens, Henry James and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Merle A. Williams, Henry James and the Philosophical Novel, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Judith Woolf, Henry James: The Major Novels, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Ruth Yeazell (ed), Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Longmans, 1994.
Other works by Henry James
Washington Square (1880) is a superb early short novel, It’s the tale of a young girl whose future happiness is being controlled by her strict authoritarian (but rather witty) father. She is rather reserved, but has a handsome young suitor. However, her father disapproves of him, seeing him as an opportunist and a fortune hunter. There is a battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant New York town house. Who wins out in the end? You will probably be surprised by the outcome. This is a masterpiece of social commentary, offering a sensitive picture of a young woman’s life.
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The Aspern Papers (1888) is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter. But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor. Money is also at stake – but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them. Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. This collection of stories also includes three of his accomplished long short stories – The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion.
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The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
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Henry James – web links
Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.
The Complete Works
Sixty books in one 13.5 MB Kindle eBook download for £1.92 at Amazon.co.uk. The complete novels, stories, travel writing, and prefaces. Also includes his autobiographies, plays, and literary criticism – with illustrations.
The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.
A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.
The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.
Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.
Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.
The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.
The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.
Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.
Henry James on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of James’s novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production features, film reviews, box office, and even quizzes.
© Roy Johnson 2013
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