Portrait of a Lady [平装]

Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.

From AudioFile
With amazing vividness, Nina Foch essays Henry James's earliest (1881) and perhaps most accessible masterpiece. A penniless American girl is brought to Europe where her beauty, ingenuousness, and naïveté attract a variety of suitors. In spite of wanting to do everything right, everything comes out wrong in this perceptive, subtle, and multilayered psychological novel, which Foch plays like a musical instrument. A rather loud one -- she hits all the notes correctly but coarsely. The effect is like a bordello pianist--albeit one with nimble fingers--playing Chopin on an old upright. A maladroit abridgment causes occasional confusion. Lackadaisical engineering adds stridency and calls attention to edits. Y.R. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review
?The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.??Rebecca West --This text refers to the Paperback edition.