The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Henry James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014043223X ISBN 13: 9780140432237

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1984

Synopsis

"The Portrait of a Lady" is the most stunning achievement of Henry James's early period--in the 1860s and '70s when he was transforming himself from a talented young American into a resident of Europe, a citizen of the world, and one of the greatest novelists of modern times. A kind of delight at the success of this transformation informs every page of this masterpiece. Isabel Archer, a beautiful, intelligent, and headstrong American girl newly endowed with wealth and embarked in Europe on a treacherous journey to self-knowledge, is delineated with a magnificence that is at once casual and tense with force and insight. The characters with whom she is entangled--the good man and the evil one, between whom she wavers, and the mysterious witchlike woman with whom she must do battle--are each rendered with a virtuosity that suggests dazzling imaginative powers. And the scene painting--in England and Italy--provides a continuous visual pleasure while always remaining crucial to the larger drama.

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Review

""The Portrait of a Lady" is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world."--Rebecca West

"The Portrait of a Lady" is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world. Rebecca West"

"The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world."--Rebecca West

-The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.---Rebecca West

From the Publisher

Isabel Archer has been brought to England from Albany, New York, by her Aunt Touchett to extend her education, possibly to marry well.

Isabel, proud and independent, has other ideas. She has no desire to marry and wishes to create her own future, rather than finding it as a wife. Consequently she refuses two very eligible suitors: Lord Warburton and Caspar Goodwood, who has followed her to Europe from America.

When her uncle Lord Touchett dies, leaving Isabel a fortune, he unwittingly does her a great disservice, for on a visit to Italy she is introduced by Madame Merle to Gilbert Osmond. Osmond is a charming but worthless dilettante who sees Isabel as a beautiful prize, a mother for his daughter Pansy, and a source of easily attained wealth. From his cruel cynicism comes Isabel's tragic disillusionment.

In his exquisitely crafted and deeply ironic novel, Henry James depicts the heart and soul of a young woman whose destiny is taken from her own hands.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 014043223X
• ISBN 13: 9780140432237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 650
• Editor: Geoffrey Moore, Patricia Crick