A very charming and illuminating tribute.
Henry James from his author's note in the original introduction The delicate wit, the urbane humor, the quiet wisdom, the unfailing good temper
I am sure that the readers who have already affirmed their taste by liking these in your [James's] novels and essays will like them the more in an ordering which would be fatal to inferior performance.
William Dean Howells from his note to the author in the original introduction Who is your favorite novelist of all time? Henry James, for the range of his sympathy and the quality of his prose. For the way in which he dramatizes moral issues while all the time attending to sensuous and stylish questions. For his seriousness about form in his fiction and the way in which he refuses to allow the reader to make easy judgments, for his insisting on nuance, half-light and suggestion, and for his deep understanding of the strangeness and the wavering nature of motive and feeling in human relationships.
Colm T ib n New York Times Book Review Mysterious coincidence/concurrence often happens in publishing (as in life). An example is the publication of two Henry James books: Travels with Henry James and The Daily Henry James. . . .Daily was originally printed in 1911, as the 'ultimate token of fandom.' It was edited by Evelyn Smalley, compiled as a commonplace book
a personal collection of quotes. From The Portrait of a Lady 'I judge more than I used to
but it seems to me that I have earned the right. One can't judge till one is forty; before that we are too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition too ignorant.'
Marilyn Dahl Shelf Awareness Part of the purpose of this book, one begins to think, is to emphasize bookishness itself. In the face of digitization, print features that gesture toward former ways of reading become more popular: deckle edges on hardbacks (as if the pages really were cut with a paper knife), French flaps on paperbacks (a relatively recent phenomenon in America, but one that carries an old-fashioned air). The Daily Henry James is small, but its cyclical quality
reach the end, turn back to the beginning the very next day
lends it a sense of permanence. It will belong on shelves a decade from now, it seems to say, as much as it does today, or did a century ago.
Hannah Rosefield New Yorker At first glance, Henry James seems the least likely author of a book of aphorisms and calendrical quotations. One was, however, published in his lifetime: The Henry James Yearbook, with a pithy entry for each day. . . . Originally bound in deep burgundy cloth, it has been reissued as The Daily Henry James. . . . A modern editor would not have chosen 'Women have no faculty of imagination with regard to a man's work beyond a vague idea that it doesn't matter, ' though its effect is mitigated by being taken from a story called The Liar. It is nice to be reminded that 'having a charming surface doesn't necessarily prove that one is superficial' (The Portrait of a Lady). If James is an unlikely source of epigrammatic wit, the book has nevertheless a touching origin.
J. C. Times Literary Supplement, NB James can seem cold and unapproachable, but that's far from the whole story. He was also a raconteur and pleasure-seeker. He believed in laughter, friendship, and kindness. And even as he rounded into plump old age, he embodied the young man's eagerness for learning and improvement. . . . The virtue of The Daily Henry James is how rousingly it distills the exhortation that echoes across James's work: Seize the day! Do your work with distinction and conduct your affairs with all the increasing care and decency that you can muster. . . . Buying a daybook is an inherently hopeful act, a small pledge to cultivate a better version of oneself. James's writing gives nourishment to anyone committed to that most honorable struggle.
Sam Sacks Wall Street Journal