"Italian Hours is Henry James's most endearing travel book and one of the best of its kind by any American. His travel writing is a superb and integral part of his total output. John Auchard's editorial work on Italian Hours provide a significant contribution to the literature on James. Auchard is a wizard. His introduction is wise and skillful, informative, beautiful, stylish, and fun. The notes are helpful, unobtrusive, and richly detailed. The photographs and bibliography should combine to make this edition the 'definitive' one for a century of devoted readers." -Robert L. Gale 'The charm of certain vacant grassy spaces, in Italy, overfrowned by masses of brickwork that are honeycombed by the suns of centuries, is something that I hereby renounce once for all the attempt to express; but you may be sure that whenever I mention such a spot enchantment lurks in it.' - Henry James In these essays on travels in Italy written from 1872 to 1909, Henry James explores art and religion, political shifts and cultural revolutions, and the nature of travel itself. James's enthusiastic appreciation of the unparalleled aesthetic allure of Venice, the vitality of Rome, and the noisy, sensuous appeal of Naples is everywhere marked by pervasive regret for the disappearance of the past and by ambivalence concerning the transformation of nineteenth-century Europe.