OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS The Portrait of a Lady

This is Henry James’ masterpiece. An exquisite story of a doomed marriage; the scene between Isabel and Ralph near the end is one of the very great scenes in all literature. I cannot recommend this novel too highly and the Oxford edition has a good introduction and helpful notes.

L anglais bien écrit de cette période. La tournure des phrases comme on les a appris à l ecole et non pas comme on les dit au quotidien. Quelle érudition.

Good

I've just finished reading this for the second time - this time for a university course - and the ending left me as puzzled and unsettled as it did the first time. Henry James is an almost unbearably elegant writer, and I wonder, perhaps uncharitably, if his portrait of the crushing of spirited Isabel Archer by the death-dealing Gilbert Osmond and his embittered eminence grise, Madame Merle, is rooted in too close an acquaintance with the stultifying consequences of placing an inordinate importance on good taste and an over-reliance on the approval of others. God, I was willing her to marry Ralph Touchett, or perhaps Lord Warburton - even the oafish Caspar Goodwood would have been better than Osmond. But to go back to him - for Heaven's sake, girl, what are you THINKING? I wonder if anybody has attempted a sequel to this beautiful, disturbing masterpiece, where our heroine finally gets her revenge, perhaps by oh-so-elegantly murdering the little weasel by poisoning his claret and framing her nemesis before rescuing Pansy from the convent and running off to Boston to start a women's publishing house with Henrietta Stackpole. Mmm. . .appealing idea. . .

Great C19 literature University of Third Age