The Portrait of a Lady

Front Cover
Wordsworth Editions, 1996 - Fiction - 500 pages

With an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Reading.

Transplanted to Europe from her native America, Isabel Archer has candour, beauty, intelligence, an independent spirit and a marked enthusiasm for life. An unexpected inheritance apparently gives her freedom, but despite all her natural advantages she makes one disastrous error of judgement and the result is genuinely tragic. Her tale, told with James' inimitable poise, is of the widest relevance.

'The phase when his (Henry James') genius functioned with the freest and fullest vitality is represented by The Portrait of a Lady'.

(F.R. LEAVIS)

 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
17
Section 3
31
Section 4
38
Section 5
54
Section 6
75
Section 7
118
Section 8
148
Section 17
293
Section 18
307
Section 19
323
Section 20
333
Section 21
343
Section 22
354
Section 23
361
Section 24
372

Section 9
154
Section 10
167
Section 11
194
Section 12
222
Section 13
233
Section 14
264
Section 15
271
Section 16
287
Section 25
393
Section 26
446
Section 27
465
Section 28
474
Section 29
481
Section 30
501
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Henry James, American novelist and literary critic, was born in 1843 in New York City. Psychologist-philosopher William James was his brother. By the age of 18, he had lived in France, England, Switzerland, Germany, and New England. In 1876, he moved to London, having decided to live abroad permanently. James was a prolific writer; his writings include 22 novels, 113 tales, 15 plays, approximately 10 books of criticism, and 7 travel books. His best-known works include Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The American Scene. His works of fiction are elegant and articulate looks at Victorian society; while primarily set in genteel society, James subtlely explores class issues, sexual repression, and psychological distress. Henry James died in 1916 in London. The James Memorial Stone in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, commemorates him.

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