FROM 1953, WITH THE PUBLICATION OF Henry James: The Untried Years, until his death in 1997, Leon Edel dominated James studies. Besides his five-volume life of James (the last volume of which appeared in 1972), Edel edited James's notebooks and a four-volume selection of his letters, wrote essays and delivered lectures about James, reviewed books related to James's work and to the members of his family, and provided introductions for reprints of James's major works, including a twelve-volume set of The Complete Tales of Henry James. In short, for more than forty years, one hardly could read anything by or about James that was not touched by the hand of Leon Edel. Because of his prominence in shaping James's reputation for the last half of the twentieth century, Edel himself has become the subject of biographical inquiry and critical assessment.

Joseph Leon Edel was born in Pittsburgh in 1907 and at the age of three moved with his family to Saskatchewan, Canada; when he was five, his mother took him to her native Russia for just over a year before coming back to Canada, this time to the small town of Yorkton, where Edel spent the rest of his childhood. In 1923, when Edel was sixteen, the family moved to Montreal, where he attended McGill University. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1927, Edel decided to pursue a master's, hoping to write his thesis on James Joyce, the writer who had most captivated his interest.