'Both the fictional and autobiographical versions of 'The Middle Years' are concerned with authors, acolytes, and endings rather than the middle of things. Or rather they are about, as are all the tales of James's middle years, the recognition of one's own extreme brevity' Frances Wilson, from her preface to The Middle Years & Other Tales.

The stories in this collection represent Henry James's middle years, a time in his life which he described as 'misanthropic, melancholy, morbid, morose', after the reception to his earlier works. The collection includes 'The Author of Beltraffio', which tells of the tragic consequences of family conflict; 'The Middle Years' which explores creative self-reflection and mortality; and 'The Altar of the Dead', a poetic elegy to lost places and friends. The stories have been selected not only for their subject but also for their size, the vast majority of them falling under 15 000 words. In other words, this collection's examination of the brevity of one's existence is echoed by the length of the stories themselves.

Frances Wilson has selected these twelve stories and provided an original introduction to James's work.