The Portrait of a Lady is considered by critics to be Henry James's most graceful achievement, and one of the finest novels in the English language.

It is the tale of Isabel Archer, a young American determined to savor her first experience of Europe. In the intoxicating worlds of Paris, Florence, and Rome, her illusions of freedom are soon perverted by the machinations of the scheming Osmond, and the treacherous Madame Merle; and what had once seemed a vista of infinite promise steadily becomes a dark study of a woman caught in a deceitful web of lies and betrayals she comes to understand too late.

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) was an American novelist, playwright, biographer and critic. He is considered one of the finest writers of his time, his masterworks including The American, The Turn of the Screw, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Wings of the Dove, and The Aspern Papers.

  “Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady is one of the thousand novels everyone must read.”

—The Guardian