When Isabel Archer, a young American woman with looks, wit, and imagination, arrives in Europe, she sees the world as a place of brightness, of free expression, of irresistible action.
Reviews
A portrait of a Lady
4
By AJG Rendral
I liked it very much, however, it did frustrate me not to know with whom she may have married of the characters if any.
Darn!
The Portrait of a Lady
1
By SWDIII
This edition is incomplete. It ends at chapter 27 , about two-thirds of the way through and leaves you dangling. Horrors!
There's a volume 2???
3
By Rush61
I thought I would never finish this book. It moves like a slug swimming in jello, and Henry James rivals Dickens for long-boring-wordy-run-on sentences (such as this one). Seriously when one sentence takes up seven lines on a full page on an iPad I'm feeling my subconscious screaming "shut up and get to the point already!" I prefer Dickens at any rate. Not sure I can drag my brain through another volume of the brilliance that is (supposedly) Isabel, the snappy Harriet, Lord Wimp-Whiny Walburton and the ummmm..deep? Osmond. Best character in the story is Mrs. Touchett who lets nothing bother her and can think for herself without a multitude of what ifs to stall her. Madame Merle makes me suspicious of her motives. She's not trustworthy, and I wish she had a smaller part in this novel, since she's mostly annoying. Maybe in volume 2 I'll find out just what she's really up to. Just don't know if I can take all the boredom to find out.
A good one in the typical James fashion.
4
By Cwrj
J Newall
The most accessible James
5
By DCJon
James's flawless tale of American innocence undone by European worldliness remains a cracking good read. The worldly Madame Merle is suitably punished for her manipulation of Isabel Archer.
Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, Sydney Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Alan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Michael Faraday, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Simon Newcomb, Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Francis Drake, Philip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, William Henry Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Charles W. Eliot, William A. Neilson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Gottfried Keller, Guy de Maupassant, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson & Alexander L. Kielland
Benjamin Franklin, Plato, William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, John Woolman, William Penn, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Adam Smith, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Anonymous, Aesop, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Michael Faraday, Hermann von Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin, Simon Newcomb, Sir Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Philiip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Sir Thomas Malory, William Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Sir Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Edward Jenner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Charles Lyell, Confucius, Christian, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Francis Bret Harte, Samuel L. Clemens, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Alexander L. Kielland & Charles Eliot
Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, David Hume, Sydney Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Alan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Michael Faraday, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Simon Newcomb, Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Francis Drake, Philip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, William Henry Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Charles W. Eliot, William A. Neilson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson & Alexander L. Kielland
Alexandre Dumas, Anne Brontë, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Daniel Defoe, Dante Alighieri, D. H. Lawewnce, Edith Wharton, Émile Zola, Emily Brontë, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, Hans Christian Andersen, The Brothers Grimm, Henry James, Herman Melville, Homer, Honoré de Balzac, Jack London, James Joyce, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Mark Twain, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Nikolai Gogol, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Butler, Stendhal, Victor Hugo, Virginia Woolf & William Makepeace Thackeray
Jane Austen, Guy de Maupassant, Sabine Baring-Gould, Eliza Haywood, Maria Edgeworth, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Fanny Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs. Olifant, William Makepeace Thackeray, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Alexandre Dumas, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grace Livingston Hill, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Fanny Fern, Lady Charlotte Bury, D. K. Broster, Mary Angela Dickens, Robert Williams Buchanan, Georg Ebers, Philip Meadows Taylor, Gilbert Parker, Anthony Trollope, F. Scott Fitzgerald, María Ruiz de Burton, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Mary Hays, Louis Hémon, Madame de La Fayette, Lady Sydney Morgan, A. E. W. Mason & Georgette Heyer
Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Herman Hesse, Kahlil Gibran, Anton Chekhov, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Marcus Aurelius, Nikolai Gogol, James Joyce, Henry David Thoreau, T. S. Eliot, John Keats, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Scott, Daniel Defoe, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Agatha Christie, Wallace D. Wattles, James Allen, Sigmund Freud, Miguel de Cervantes, Frederick Douglass, Voltaire, Sun Tzu, Plato, Upton Sinclair, Anthony Trollope, E. M. Forster, Theodore Dreiser, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, William Makepeace Thackeray, Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe & Ernest Hemingway
Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Kahlil Gibran, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, P. B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Von Arnim, D. H. Lawrence, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, C. S. Lewis, George Weedon Grossmith, H.G. Wells, Wilkie Collins, G. K. Chesterton, E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Grahame, George MacDonald, James Matthew Barrie, Mark Twain, Jack London, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Lewis Wallace, L.M. Montgomery, Homer, Plato, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Hesse, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Gaston Leroux, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Voltaire, Charles Baudelaire, Alexandre Dumas, Émile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Miguel de Cervantes, Benito Pérez Galdós, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Kalidasa, Valmiki, Laozi, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Cao Xueqin, Princess Der Ling, Inazo Nitobe, Kakuzo Okakura & Soseki Natsume