The Portrait of a Lady

Name: The Portrait of a Lady
Author: Henry James

Henry James · 1881

An American woman of intelligence and means chooses badly. Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond is laid out with such psychological exactness that the suspense is moral rather than plot-driven. The silent leap between chapters 35 and 42 is the most famous ellipsis in English fiction: the years of her ruined marriage condensed into a single, terrible page of reflection. James's first masterpiece.

The case against

on the dialogue
“The conversation in it is an art by itself. To give an appearance of actualness and spontaneity to an artificial production so careful, refined, and elaborate, must have required a prodigious effort.”
Margaret Oliphant · Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, March 1882
on Caspar Goodwood
“I would call the police because he is harassing her”
a book blog
on Gilbert Osmond
“Osmond is the archetypal douchebag”
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on the pace
“This novel was slow moving both in plot and in the manner I read it”
a book blog