When Henry James died he left behind a series of notebooks filled with ideas for novels and stories that he never wrote. Now ten of our best contemporary authors and James enthusiasts have written new short stories based on these 'germs' of ideas. Differing dramatically in setting and style, these stories are modern interpretations of the richly suggestive and enticing notes that Henry James left behind, offering a fresh and original approach to a canonical literary author.

Professor Philip Horne, a renowned authority on Henry James, has edited and introduced this collection, which also includes transcripts of Jamess original jottings allowing readers to trace the raw ideas through to their modern-day interpretations.

Contains stories by Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Paul Theroux, Amit Chaudhuri, Giles Foden, Joseph O'Neill, Lynne Truss, Susie Boyt and Tessa Hadley.

WITH A FOREWORD BY MICHAEL WOOD

Henry James was born in New York in 1843 into a wealthy, eccentric, brilliant family. In his youth he travelled between Europe and America, studying in London, Paris, Geneva, Newport, Rhode Island and Bonn. He half-heartedly studied law at Harvard, which only confirmed his sense of his vocation: to read and write fiction.

His first novel,Watch and Ward, appeared in 1871 inThe Atlantic Monthly. In 1875 James moved to Europe: Paris, then London, and later Rye in Sussex. Apart from his twenty completed novels and 112 short stories, James wrote plays, criticism, travel books, autobiographies and a huge number of letters. He became a British citizen in 1915 and died in 1916.