| Summary: | "Regarded by many critics as James's masterpiece, this is the story of Isabel Archer, an independent American heiress captivated by the languid charms of an Englishman." "A subtle psychological novel of an American girl being wooed among the elite of international society. Scene laid out mostly in Europe. An artistic masterpiece but for most persons quite slow reading." "This is one the best James's early works, in which he presents various types of American characters transplanted into a European environment. The story centers in Isabel Archer, the 'Lady, ' an attractive American girl ... Isabel refuses the offer of marriage of a typical English peer, the excellent Lord Warburton, and of a bull-dog-like New Englander, Casper Goodwood, to fall a victim ... to a worthless and spiteful dilettante, Gilbert Osmond, who marries her for her fortune and ruins her life; but to whom she remains loyal in spite of her realization of his vileness." Oxford Companion to Engl Lit. 5th edition.
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