Covering End

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Versions of
Covering End
by Henry James

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This story originated as the one-act play Summersoft, written by James in 1895 but neither performed nor published at the time. James converted it into this story in 1898. In 1907 he converted back into a three-act play The High Bid, which was produced in 1909 but not published.

Unusually for James' fiction, "Covering End" was not serialised in a journal prior to publication in book form. It appeared alongside James' most famous short story "The Turn of the Screw" in the 1898 The Two Magics, but was omitted from both the "New York Edition" of James' fiction, and from the posthumous The Novels and Stories of Henry James.

2127279Covering EndHenry James (1843-1916)

Versions of Covering End include:

Summersoft, a one-act play written by James in 1895. It was not published until Edel, Leon (ed.) (1949), The Complete Plays of Henry James, Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. [copyright renewed 23 March 1977]

"Covering End" in The Two Magics (London: William Heinemann, 1898): 173–310.
— First English edition
"Covering End" in The Two Magics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1898): 217–393.
— First American edition. The first English and American book editions were published at about the same time and are textually almost identical.

The High Bid, a three-act play written by James in 1907. It was not published until Edel, Leon (ed.) (1949), The Complete Plays of Henry James, Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. [copyright renewed 23 March 1977]