This brilliant satire of the women’s rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight?
“The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”
About The Bostonians
Henry James’s celebrated novel about a passionate New England feminist, her reactionary Southern gentleman cousin, and a charismatic young woman whose loyalty they both wish to possess goes so directly to the heart of sexual politics that it speaks to us with a voice as fresh and vital as when the book was first published in 1886.
When Basil Ransom visits his cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston, she takes him to hear a political speech about women’s emancipation by a gifted speaker named Verena Tarrant. Though repelled by her principles, Basil is enchanted by the lovely Verena and becomes determined to convert her to his rigidly conservative views of a woman’s place. He argues that Verena is made for private passion not a public career, and wants to marry her and take her away from those he feels are exploiting her. But Olive, a serious devotee of the cause, has made Verena her protégée and taken her into her home. What ensues is a battle for the young woman’s body and soul by two antagonists with wills stronger than hers. Riveting in its narrative drama, rich and sympathetic in its ironies, The Bostonians is the work of a master psychologist at the top of his form.
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About The Bostonians
This brilliant satire of the women’s rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight?
“The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”
Henry James was born on April 15, 1843, on Washington Place in New York to the most intellectually remarkable of American families. His father, Henry James Sr., was a brilliant and eccentric religious philosopher; his brother was one of the… More about Henry James
About Henry James
Henry James was born on April 15, 1843, on Washington Place in New York to the most intellectually remarkable of American families. His father, Henry James Sr., was a brilliant and eccentric religious philosopher; his brother was one of the… More about Henry James
About Henry James
Henry James was born on April 15, 1843, on Washington Place in New York to the most intellectually remarkable of American families. His father, Henry James Sr., was a brilliant and eccentric religious philosopher; his brother was one of the… More about Henry James
“As devastating in its wit as it is sharp in its social critique of sexual politics. No writer in America had dared the subject before. No one has done it so well since.” —The New Republic
