Full of acerbic insights on English life and manners Alice James diaries have made her a feminist icon Alice James 184892 was the sister of Henry and William James as literary as her more famous brothers butas was typical for a Victorian womannever formally educated and thus deprived of any opportunity for a normal career. In her introductory biographical essay Professor Ruth Bernard Yeazell of Yale University argues that Alice James instead made a career of her lifelong neurasthenic illness and anticipation of death. In this selection of letters many written from the invalids bed one finds Alice James witty and lyrical but always deeply morbid an artist of the deathbed reminiscent of Kafkas fictional Hunger Artist.