PORTRAIT OF A LADY, THE

　　Capturing the grandeur of a gracious, splendid Europe ofwealth and Old World sensibilities, this glorious, complex novelhas become a touchstone for a great writer’s entire literaryachievement. From the opening pages, when the high-spiritedAmerican girl Isabel Archer arrives at the English manorGardencourt, James’s luminous, superbly crafted prose creates anatmosphere of intensity, expectation, and incomparablebeauty.
　　Isabel, who has been taken abroad by an eccentric aunt to fulfillher potential, attracts the passions of a British aristocrat and abrash American, as well as the secret adoration of her invalidcousin, Ralph Touchett. But her vulnerability and innocence leadher not to love but to a fatal entrapment in intrigue, deception,and betrayal. This brilliant interior drama of the forming of awoman’s consciousness makes The Portrait of a Lady a masterpiece ofJames’s middle years.