How Real American Readers Originally Experienced James's "The Real Thing"

Abstract

Based on numerous resources previously unknown to scholars--including archival letters, personal reminiscences, advertisements, newspaper editorials--this article examines the history of the original serial publication of "The Real Thing" in multiple American newspapers in early April 1892 and how readers at the time understood both this story and James himself. By recreating the print and ideological contexts in which readers originally read "The Real Thing," it argues that the story's American serial readers most likely interpreted this story quite differently than modern scholars have.