The Portrait of a Lady (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

by Henry James (Author), Robert D. Bamberg (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The text of this Second Edition of one of Henry James's most important novels is that of the New York Edition (1908).

In a sense, there are two distinctly separate Portraits—the 1880-81 First Edition and the New York Edition, which James extensively revised. The editor has meticulously prepared a list of textual variants to facilitate comparative reading of the novel. Nina Baym, F. O. Matthiessen, and Anthony J. Mazzella provide differing interpretations of James's revision process.

Henry James and the Novel culls autobiographical excerpts from James's other writings—his Notebooks, the intentionally autobiographical A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother, and the travel books Italy Revisited, A Roman Holiday, and Roman Rides.

Contemporary Reviews and Criticism provides both chronological and critical perspective on The Portrait of a Lady. Four reviews from 1882 outline the novel's initial critical reception.

Seven important essays from the period 1954-1991 provide a wide range of critical responses by Dorothy Van Ghent, William H. Gass, Laurence B. Holland, Charles Feidelson, Louis Auchincloss, William Veeder, and Millicent Bell.

Bibliographical Aids includes judiciously selected secondary works on James from the wealth of material published yearly.

About the Author
Robert D. Bamberg is Emeritus Professor of English at Kent State University. He previously taught at Bates College (where he was chairman of the department and Dean of the Faculty) and at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is the author of articles on British and American fiction and is editor of The Confessions of Jereboam O. Beauchamp. He is an affiliate member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and practices psychoanalysis in Cleveland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; Second Edition edition (August 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393966461
• ISBN-13: 978-0393966466
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #130,930 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue.", May 10, 2006

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.

Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live.

James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do into an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel.

As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Henry James, September 19, 2003

By	Aaron Percefull (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've come back to this novel after reading it in graduate school thirty years ago, and I remain awed by James's genius. His ability to depict the nuance of social interaction is unparalleled. His psychological understanding of his characters is almost uncanny. Add to that perhaps the most complex, devious, sociopathic villains in literature -- Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond -- and you have a gripping story of greed, deception, and innocence lost. "The Portrait of a Lady" represents the true epitome of the 19th-century English novel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars previous review is factually inaccurate, August 4, 2006

By	Matheme "rumors of my death are exaggerated" (brooklyn, ny United States) - See all my reviews

A wonderfully engrossing book for students and amateur fans of the comedy of manners genre.

I must say that the previous commentator gets so many simple "diegetic" facts wrong I wonder why they bothered summarizing the book in the first place. Simple things like the fact that Isabel's Aunt does not live at Gardencourt, but in Florence; she merely visits the former annually. Likewise Ed Rosier is not a lover of Isabel's, but a childhood friend from the states; he "makes love" to Pansy Osmond, Isabel's step-daughter, making for a nice contrast of "true" affection with Isabel's husband's mere seemings in that regard.

Finally the idea that "her need to be independent makes her marriage a disaster" is a gross mischaracterization that makes James sound like some kind of male-chauvanist reactionary. Not that there's anything with that, it's just not the case in the most basic terms of the novel.

Why? First of all, Isabel, bright as she is, enters into marriage knowing full well that it will mean some curtailing of the freedom of her maidenhood, she says as much in a crucial dialogue about her impending marriage with Ralph Touchett, who's Cassandra-like in his unheeded prevision of disaster. (See chapter 34 for the exact lines.) When she says she's ready to gratify her very particular husband's wishes Ralph retorts that she was meant for more than catering to the sensibilities of a "sterile dilettante". This exactly incapsulates why the marriage is a failure: Osmond's sterility is not a simple matter of his not being an active gentleman with a noble/haute bourgeois occupation --- as with Lord Warburton or the senior Touchett --- more importantly, it involves his inability to love a women as vibrant as Isabel (Pansy, of course, is not a problem). This is what Isabel feels acutely shortly into the marriage: not that her husband denies her freedom of movement, but that he denies her the right to a psychological existence of her own. He grows to hate her for precisely what makes her so beautiful --- her wit, her genius, her spirit.

I'm often saddened by the policy of anyone posting reviews on this site. It amounts to the total of most peoples interaction with literary criticism, and it is generally a poor showing.