Get personalized recommendations and earn points toward a free book!
Before you go...
Check Out These
21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
See the List
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Read An Excerpt

Look Inside

Read An Excerpt
Read An Excerpt
Read An Excerpt

The Portrait of a Lady

By Henry James
Introduction by Anita Brookner

By Henry James
Introduction by Anita Brookner

By Henry James

By Henry James

By Henry James
Introduction by Peter Washington

By Henry James
Introduction by Peter Washington

By Henry James

By Henry James

Best Seller

Part of Modern Library Classics

Part of Everyman’s Library Classics Series

Paperback $13.00

Feb 12, 2002 | 640 Pages

Mass Market Paperback $5.99

Oct 01, 1983 | 656 Pages *This format is not eligible to earn points towards the Reader Rewards program

Hardcover $25.00

Nov 26, 1991 | 672 Pages

Ebook $4.99

Jun 26, 2007 | 656 Pages

All Formats
+
    The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
    Paperback
    Feb 12, 2002 | 640 Pages
    See All Formats (3) +

    Paperback (2)
    –

    • Paperback $13.00

      Feb 12, 2002 | 640 Pages

    • Mass Market Paperback $5.99

      Oct 01, 1983 | 656 Pages

      *This format is not eligible to earn points towards the Reader Rewards program

    Hardcover
    +

    • Hardcover $25.00

      Nov 26, 1991 | 672 Pages

    Ebook
    +

    • Ebook $4.99

      Jun 26, 2007 | 656 Pages

    Buy the Ebook:

    About The Portrait of a Lady

    One of the great heroines of American literature, Isabel Archer, journeys to Europe in order to, as Henry James writes in his 1908 Preface, “affront her destiny.” James began The Portrait of a Lady without a plot or subject, only the slim but provocative notion of a young woman taking control of her fate. The result is a richly imagined study of an American heiress who turns away her suitors in an effort to first establish—and then protect—her independence. But Isabel’s pursuit of spiritual freedom collapses when she meets the captivating Gilbert Osmond. “James’s formidable powers of observation, his stance as a kind of bachelor recorder of human doings in which he is not involved,” writes Hortense Calisher, “make him a first-class documentarian, joining him to that great body of storytellers who amass what formal history cannot.”

    About The Portrait of a Lady

    Capturing the grandeur of a gracious, splendid Europe of wealth and Old World sensibilities, this glorious, complex novel has become a touchstone for a great writer’s entire literary achievement. From the opening pages, when the high-spirited American girl Isabel Archer arrives at the English manor Gardencourt, James’s luminous, superbly crafted prose creates an atmosphere of intensity, expectation, and incomparable beauty.

    Isabel, who has been taken abroad by an eccentric aunt to fulfill her potential, attracts the passions of a British aristocrat and a brash American, as well as the secret adoration of her invalid cousin, Ralph Touchett. But her vulnerability and innocence lead her not to love but to a fatal entrapment in intrigue, deception, and betrayal. This brilliant interior drama of the forming of a woman’s consciousness makes The Portrait of a Lady a masterpiece of James’s middle years.

    About The Portrait of a Lady

    Isabel Archer, a beautiful, intelligent, and headstrong American girl newly endowed with wealth and embarked in Europe on a treacherous journey to self-knowledge, is delineated with a magnificence that is at once casual and tense with force and insight. The characters with whom she is entangled–the good man and the evil one, between whom she wavers, and the mysterious witchlike woman with whom she must do battle–are each rendered with a virtuosity that suggests dazzling imaginative powers. And the scene painting–in England and Italy–provides a continuous visual pleasure while always remaining crucial to the larger drama.

    The Portrait of a Lady is the most stunning achievement of Henry James’s early period–in the 1860s and ’70s when he was transforming himself from a talented young American into a resident of Europe, a citizen of the world, and one of the greatest novelists of modern times. A kind of delight at the success of this transformation informs every page of this masterpiece.

    (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) 

    About The Portrait of a Lady

    Capturing the grandeur of a gracious, splendid Europe of wealth and Old World sensibilities, this glorious, complex novel has become a touchstone for a great writer’s entire literary achievement. From the opening pages, when the high-spirited American girl Isabel Archer arrives at the English manor Gardencourt, James’s luminous, superbly crafted prose creates an atmosphere of intensity, expectation, and incomparable beauty.

    Isabel, who has been taken abroad by an eccentric aunt to fulfill her potential, attracts the passions of a British aristocrat and a brash American, as well as the secret adoration of her invalid cousin, Ralph Touchett. But her vulnerability and innocence lead her not to love but to a fatal entrapment in intrigue, deception, and betrayal. This brilliant interior drama of the forming of a woman’s consciousness makes The Portrait of a Lady a masterpiece of James’s middle years.

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Henry James

    The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
    Daisy Miller and Other Tales
    The Ambassadors
    The Aspern Papers and Other Tales
    Collected Stories
    See all books by Henry James

    Also by Henry James

    The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
    Daisy Miller and Other Tales
    The Ambassadors
    The Aspern Papers and Other Tales
    Collected Stories
    See all books by Henry James

    Also by Henry James

    The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
    Daisy Miller and Other Tales
    The Ambassadors
    The Aspern Papers and Other Tales
    Collected Stories
    See all books by Henry James

    Also by Henry James

    The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
    Daisy Miller and Other Tales
    The Ambassadors
    The Aspern Papers and Other Tales
    Collected Stories
    See all books by 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

    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

    Product Details

    Category: Fiction Classics | Romance | Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller

    Paperback | $13.00
    Published by Modern Library
    Feb 12, 2002 | 640 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780375759192

    Category: Fiction Classics | Romance | Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller

    Mass Market Paperback | $5.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Oct 01, 1983 | 656 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553211276

    Category: Fiction Classics | Romance | Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller

    Hardcover | $25.00
    Published by Everyman’s Library
    Nov 26, 1991 | 672 Pages | 5-3/8 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780679405627

    Category: Fiction Classics | Romance | Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller

    Ebook | $4.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Jun 26, 2007 | 656 Pages | ISBN 9780553903973

    People Who Read The Portrait of a Lady Also Read

    ‹ ›
    Ghosted
    Caught
    Conversations with Friends
    Men Without Women
    Chemistry
    The Light We Lost
    The Wanderers
    Nutshell
    A Few of the Girls
    The Dressmaker
    The Lost Art of Mixing
    The Silent Wife
    Appointment in Samarra
    Inside
    The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.
    The Silent Land
    The Uncoupling
    Once Upon a Time, There Was You
    Getting to Happy
    Summertime
    Sima's Undergarments for Women
    Kokoro
    Pontoon
    Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys
    The Office of Desire
    Second Chance
    Seven Types of Ambiguity
    The Doctor's Wife
    Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed?
    AEIOU: Any Easy Intimacy
    Katharine Graham's Washington
    Her
    Endless Feasts
    Illumination Night
    Welcome to My Planet
    Box Office Poison
    Le Mariage
    The Wishbones
    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    Impossible Vacation
    The Buddha of Suburbia
    Eighty-Sixed
    Cold Spring Harbor
    The Little Disturbances of Man
    A Severed Head

    Inspired by Your Browsing History

    Praise

    “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

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    TASTE img

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    LitFlash

    The eBooks you want at the lowest prices

    Read it Forward

    Read it first. Pass it on!