The Portrait of a Lady

By Henry James

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Henry James's 1881 novel follows Isabel Archer, a spirited young American who inherits a fortune and travels to England and Italy determined to choose her own fate. Courted by several suitors, she makes a fateful marriage to the expatriate Gilbert Osmond. First serialized in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine, the novel is a landmark of psychological realism. It explores freedom, money, betrayal and the clash between American innocence and European sophistication.

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• Patrick Collison: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”