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Isabel Archer, a young American with a lively mind and great hopes for her freedom, is brought to England by her aunt. She refuses two excellent suitors, an…
Isabel Archer, a young American with a lively mind and great hopes for her freedom, is brought to England by her aunt. She refuses two excellent suitors, an English lord and an American industrialist, and when she unexpectedly inherits a fortune, she sets out to see the world. In Italy she meets the cultivated Gilbert Osmond, and makes the choice of her life.
Context and significance
Published in 1881, the novel is Henry James's early masterpiece, a subtle story of independence, manipulation and the consequences of a free choice. Its scenes of quiet thought, especially Isabel's night by the fire, changed what the novel could do. For a shorter James, read The Turn of the Screw.
About the author
Henry James (1843–1916) was born in New York, the brother of the philosopher William James, and was educated in Europe and America. In 1876 he settled in London, and later in the small town of Rye, and spent his life writing about Americans in Europe and the clash of innocence and experience.
In some twenty novels and more than a hundred stories, including The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw, he developed a subtle, psychological style that influenced modern fiction. He became a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death.