One of the great heroines of American literature, Isabel Archer, journeys to Europe in order to, as Henry James writes in his 1908 Preface, “affront her destiny.” James began The Portrait of a Lady without a plot or subject, only the slim but provocative notion of a young woman taking control of her fate. The result is a richly imagined study of an American heiress who turns away her suitors in an effort to first establish—and then protect—her independence. But Isabel’s pursuit of spiritual freedom collapses when she meets the captivating Gilbert Osmond. “James’s formidable powers of observation, his stance as a kind of bachelor recorder of human doings in which he is not involved,” writes Hortense Calisher, “make him a first-class documentarian, joining him to that great body of storytellers who amass what formal history cannot.”
Henry James was born in New York in 1843 and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year's attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876. His literary output was prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels, including The Portrait of a Lady and The American; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as 'the Master', James died in Kensington, London, in 1916.
Anita Brookner is the author of twenty novels, including Falling Slowly, Undue Influence, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. She lives in London.
I suddenly found myself sobbing like a baby after reading this novel, as if I myself had confronted that tragic destiny of Isabel. It’s said that a novel is in its broadest sense a personal, a direct impression of life. When we read between the lines, we a...
評分What Contributes to Isabel's Tragedy? For a lady who bestowed upon dazzling beauty by god, and inherited a handsome amount of money from her uncle, wonderful life, like a volume of painting , was supposed to unfold itself before her. But, for Isabel, it's...
評分在我看来书名《一位女士的画像》就是对这本书最好的定位,就像一张正经绘制的风景油画,写实、饱满、色彩丰富、面面俱到;细节往往值得人欣赏和品味,鸟瞰全局的时候反而容易迷乱。 细致描写——无论是对于七上八下的人物内心活动还是对于花样繁多的沙龙式场景——是《画像》...
Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
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