The Ambassadors: Introduction by Sarah Churchwell (Everyman's Library Classics Series) - Hardcover

James, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1101907827 ISBN 13: 9781101907825

Publisher: Everyman's Library USA, 2016

Synopsis

A new Everyman's Library hardcover edition of The Ambassadors--one of the great masterpieces of Henry James's late period, and the author's own favorite among his works.

First published in 1903, the novel follows middle-aged Lambert Strether as he is dispatched from Massachusetts to Paris by his wealthy fiancée to rescue her son, Chad Newsome, from the corrupting influences of Europe and its wicked women. Once the mild-mannered and inexperienced Strether arrives in Paris, however, Chad introduces him to a world that he finds refined and sophisticated, rather than debauched and base. Mrs. Newsome, waiting in Massachusetts, grows impatient and sends more ambassadors to retrieve her wayward men. But Strether has become especially enchanted by Chad's female friends Madame de Vionnet and her daughter, Jeanne, and he begins to wonder if, all his life, he has missed out on what the wider world has to offer. "Live all you can; it's a mistake not to," he tells a friend in one of the most memorable scenes in this darkly comic, masterfully written story of liberation, self-discovery, and the meaning of living well.

About this title

Review:

'... the Cambridge Edition reproduces James's fiction as it originally appeared to his contemporary book-buying public, collectively charting a half century of artistic development, stylistic invention, and cultural history. It gives readers options, and in the case of The Ambassadors the choice of the Cambridge Edition is a deeply satisfying one. ... One of the Cambridge Edition's many strengths is the attention the editors pay to textual history and the historical development of James's fiction within biographical, literary, and cultural contexts ... many will agree that the Cambridge Edition is 'quite the best, 'all round' edition ...' Sarah Wadsworth, Review of English Studies

'One of] two handsome volumes in their Cambridge maroon cloth covers with gilt stamping on the binding and James's familiar signature on the covers are crucial additions to the resources scholars will use for generations to study the greatest novelist of the modern period.' John Carlos Rowe, The Henry James Review

Book Description:

Henry James considered his late novel The Ambassadors (1903) 'quite the best, 'all round'' of all his works. This volume based on the first book edition provides extensive annotations, a detailed textual history of the work and a full introduction exploring the novel's literary, cultural and historical contexts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Everyman's Library USA
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1101907827
• ISBN 13: 9781101907825
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 536