num_pages: 548
description: "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.
language: English
title: The Portrait of a Lady
titlecomplete: The Portrait of a Lady (Barnes & Noble Classics)
characters: Gilbert Osmond, Caspar Goodwood, Lydia Touchett, Madame Merle, Pansy Osmond, Ralph Touchett, Isabel Archer, Henrietta Stackpole, Lord Warburton, Edward Rosier
genres: American, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literature, Victorian, Classic Literature, Classics, Romance, Fiction, 19th Century
ratings_count: 79293
places: England, Rome, Italy, Florence, Tuscany
publisher: Barnes & Noble