The Portrait of a Lady

I have treasured James’s work, having been deeply engrossed in the great trilogy of The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.

At some point, it occurred to me that I hadn’t read the perhaps less celebrated The Portrait of a Lady, so I read it. It is by no means a lightweight piece—the action sprawling, as it does over two continents and across two stages in the life of the eponymous lady, Isabel Archer.

After being brutally betrayed by false friends and advisors as a young woman, she finds redemption in her… show more.

I read this book for the third time in forty-some years. I wanted to read it again to refresh my sense of what makes a book great and to answer again the questions some people have about why this book is important.

I very much enjoyed following, once again, Isabel Archer’s trajectory of an intelligent woman who makes an unwise decision and follows through. I also enjoyed the characterizations of several of the other characters, set in their time and place. I wanted to read something to help me lift my subject in my next novel.