The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Synopsis:

This tells the story of Isabel Archer, a spirited young American heiress. She inherits a large amount of money and becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. It is set in Europe, mostly England and Italy.

She marries Gilbert Osmond which leads to a struggle between her desire for independence and the constraints of her marriage.

Review:

I enjoyed this story and loved the character of Isabel.

“She had a desire to leave the past before her and, as she said to herself, to begin afresh. This desire indeed was not a birth of the present occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the rain upon the window and it had led to her beginning afresh a great many times.”

“She was a young person of many theories; her imagination was remarkably active. It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind than most of the persons among whose lot was cast; to have a larger perception of surrounding facts, and to care for knowledge that was tinged with the unfamiliar.”

“The great advantage of being a literary woman was that you could go everywhere and do everything.”