This was James’s first ghostly tale, although it keeps its ghost hidden behind ambiguous signs at its very end. As was to be the case in later tales, James’s ghosts are more psychological than apparitional! Interestingly, in the revised 1885 text presented here, James changed the family name of the central characters from Willoughby to Wingrave, a name he was to reuse in 1892 for another ghostly tale, Owen Wingrave. With it’s obviously predictive overtones, it was clearly a name which appealed to him in ghostly situations!
For details of the text sources and subsequent critical discussion see the bibliography. You may be interested in details of any problems I encountered while editing the source text for its presentation here, which can be found on a separate page, otherwise just start reading.
this introduction
© 2005
part of an etext edition of
The romance of certain old clothes
on
the Ladder : a Henry James website