Mr. Edel's biography of the young Henry James ["Henry James: The Untried Years"] is imposing…. The very notion of devoting so many pages to a period before James had produced a single important work is itself a measure of Mr. Edel's aspiration…. Zealously, but with intelligence and grace, he sets the record straight: he picks up all the "stitches" which James in his memoirs "dropped for worry-saving"—disposes of rash speculation as to the nature of the injury which James suffered at the age of eighteen—marshals the evidence bearing on James's affection for his cousin Minny Temple—unearths James's first short story. The only major fault in this phase of the book, though a strange one in a work that rightfully assumes so authoritative an air, has to do with the annotation: the notes are so sketchy and so badly presented as to make it almost impossible...