Henry James is one of those classic writers who seems to be "rediscovered" by each successive generation as a master storyteller; his tales are evergreen and never fail to entertain, give pause for thought or send a shiver down the spines of readers. The subtitle of this collection of wonderful short stories says it all: Stories Henry James Never Wrote. Some well-known authors and authorities on James's work have taken ideas from notebooks which James left after his death in 1916, and have crafted them into tales of their own. It is fascinating to see how familiar writers such as Colm Tóibín, Rose Tremain, Tessa Hadley and Lynn Truss match their own style to quintessentially Jamesian themes: a father who isn't who he appeared to be; a ghostly reminder of past loss; an affair that never quite caught fire. Each story is different, but the hand of the master is clearly detectable throughout, a gentle guide that shapes the telling.
