Henry James had considered the idea behind this fable for many years before actually writing it: seemingly ever since meeting the poet Robert Browning in the 1870s and being perplexed by the difference between his personality in life and that apparently revealed in the work. Although the two surviving notebook entries date from 1891, they read as if the idea was already fully worked out in James’s mind at that point. In fact the first of the two notes comprises a suggested opening which is in its first two sentences the same as, and thereafter is very similar to, the published text. Perhaps the germ was recovered from an entry in a lost notebook. Whatever the exact course of its development, the surviving notes date from just before composition of the tale, which took place while James was convalescing in Ireland, having suffered a severe bout of ’flu in the spring of 1891.

The private life expresses what was probably one of James’s most deeply held beliefs about art in all its forms: that there is not necessarily any link between the personality of the creator and the content of the created.

You may like to know about the exact source of the text presented here, and any errors I encountered while making the edition: these can be found in the note on the text. If you need full details of publications of this tale in James’s lifetime or of a selection of recent critical discussion about it see the bibliography, otherwise just start reading.