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"The Portrait of a Lady," by Henry James, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of "Barnes & Noble Classics": New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. "Barnes & Noble Classics "pulls together a constellation of influences-biographical, historical, and literary-to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Widely regarded as Henry James's greatest masterpiece, "The Portrait of a Lady" features one of the author's most magnificent heroines: Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American who becomes a victim of her provincialism during her travels in Europe. As the story begins, Isabel, resolved to determine her own fate, has turned down two eligible suitors. Her cousin, who is dying of tuberculosis, secretly gives her an inheritance so that she can remain independent and fulfill a grand destiny, but the fortune only leads her to make a tragic choice and marryGilbert Osmond, an American expatriate who lives in Florence. Outwardly charming and cultivated, but fundamentally cold and cruel, Osmond only brings heartbreak and ruin to Isabel's life. Yet she survives as she begins to realize that true freedom means living with her choices and their consequences. Richly complex and nearly aesthetically perfect, "The Portrait of a Lady "brilliantly portrays the clash between the innocence and exuberance of the New World

Publicada en 1904, se trata de una espléndida novela en donde su autor, fiel a su universo, profundiza en las diferencis entre la cultura americana y la europea. También en la endiablada psicología humana, expuesta a sutiles variaciones y sorpresas. Un padre adinerado y su hija compran el amor de dos jóvenes europeos, pero al tiempo depara un cambo en las reglas del juego. La última novela del autor de Otra vuelta de tuerca, una lección magistral para la narrativa contemporánea. PROL. DE ALEJANDRO GANDARA

In 1914, Henry James began work on a major novel about the immense new fortunes of America's Gilded Age. After an absence of more than twenty years, James had returned for a visit to his native country; what he found there filled him with profound dismay. In The Ivory Tower, his last book, the characteristic pattern underlying so much of his fictionin which American 'innocence' is transformed by its encounter with European 'experience'receives a new twist: raised abroad, the hero comes home to America to confront, as James puts it, 'the black and merciless things that are behind the great possessions.' James died in 1916 with the first three books of The Ivory Tower completed. He also left behind a 'treatment,' in which he charted the further progress of his story. This fascinating scenario, one of only two to survive among James's papers, is also published here together with a striking critical essay by Ezra Pound.

Obra magistral en la que James despliega conscientemente y a carta cabal la ambiguedad de las situaciones humanas en toda su plenitud. Un escritor consagrado en plena decadencia aconseja a su joven discipulo, una promesa en ciernes, la renuncia a los placeres mundanos como unico medio de lograr la inmortalidad literaria. Tras la leccion, el joven, tan confuso como al principio, es incapaz de discernir si lo que guia al maestro es una generosidad extrema o el colmo del egoismo.

Un clásico de la literatura anglosajona que en esta novela trata una de sus temas recurrentes, el choque entre la cultura europea y el modo de vida americano. James, que fue tan americano como inglés para ser finalmente Henry James, sumerge a un barbaro americano en un viejo Paris, y que lo envolvera en antiguos y tenebrosos secretos.

This brilliant satire of the women's rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena's heart and remove her from the limelight? "The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James," writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. "It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals...[written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed and wildly comic realism."

Una esposa enferma, su más íntima amiga y una joven vecina ocasional forman parte del círculo que rodea al banquero Tony Bream cuando, in extremis, se ve obligado a pronunciar un juramento difícil de aceptar y de cumplir. En virtud de este, no solo su futuro queda hipotecado, sino tambien el de otras personas que quiza desearian no verlo tan comprometido y cuyos actos desembocan, en medio de una densa atmosfera de culpabilidad colectiva, en una serie de acontecimientos oscuros e infelices... en sufrimientos, peligro y muerte. La otra casa (f 896) fue la primera novela que escribio Henry James despues de sus infortunados años dedicados al teatro, y de hecho parte de un guion para una obra dramatica. Es una de sus piezas menos conocidas, y en muchos sentidos extraordinaria, un estallido de rabia primitiva que parece irracional e incontrolado, segun su biografo Leon Edel, pero que el escritor consideraria hasta el fin de su carrera un precedente, una lucecita divina que alumbra mi paso. En esta historia escalofriante de abismos abiertos bajo la delicadeza de las formas, se cumple una tecnica que el mismo texto anuncia: Lo cierto es que los elementos del drama surgen cuando se comprimen con fuerza y, en algunas circunstancias, parecen invitar mas al microscopio que a los gemelos del teatro.

Un conjunto de relatos de medio y largo aliento, algunos de ellos casi novelas cortas, en los que se abordan los más diversos temas: un caso de pobreza extrema, el culto a los muertos, el cinismo, la traicion, la venganza... Pese a la diversidad de temas, en todos ellos destaca el talento narrativo y las dotes de observacion del autor para mostrarnos las caras mas sutiles de los conflictos con los que viven los personajes. Estas piezas del maestro ingles son una muestra de sus dotes para retratar y describir a los personajes, para dosificar y modular la intriga psicologica y para plantear los mas ineludibles problemas morales. Todo ello con un certero dominio del lenguaje que alcanza las mas altas cotas de la mejor literatura.

The shy and sweet daughter of a well-to-do physician, Catherine Sloper seems destined for lifelong spinsterhood until the sudden appearance of a dashing suitor who proposes marriage. Her adored father suspects the would-be fiance of fortune-hunting and threatens her with disinheritance, forcing Catherine to choose between lover and father. Setting his novel in New York City of the 1840s, James masterfully explores the moral consequences of a tender heart’s ruthless manipulation.

With a decaying Venetian villa as a backdrop, an anonymous narrator relates his obsessive quest for the personal documents of a deceased Romantic poet, one Jeffrey Aspern. Led by his mission into increasingly unscrupulous behavior, he is ultimately faced with relinquishing his heart's desire or attaining it at an overwhelming price.

Quelques-unes des plus belles nouvelles de la fin de la carrière de James figurent dans cette anthologie : « La Chose authentique », « Owen Wingrave », « La Vraie Chose à faire », « L'Arbre de la connaissance », « La Note du temps », « Le Gant de velours », « Le Banc de la désolation » composent ce recueil, où chaque récit dévoile progressivement, en nous tenant sous le charme, son symbole et son secret. Si tant d'artistes sont malheureux dans les nouvelles de James, c'est que l'alchimie de l'art, suggère J.-B. Pontalis, ne serait « qu'un remède à l'amour impossible ou interdit, une manière aussi de conjurer la désolation dont l'ultime figure est la mort ».

Famous novella, rich in psychological and social insight, chronicles a young American girl's willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences.