The Golden Bowl

Author(s): Henry James

Classics

"James described The Golden Bowl as 'the most done of my productions--the most composed and constructed and completed.' In the novel an American woman, Maggie Verver, marries an Italian prince, while her wealthy father marries Maggie's girlhood friend, Charlotte Stant--neither Verver being aware that the Prince and Charlotte have been (and possibly continue to be) lovers. Maggie's eventual discovery of the nature of that relationship provides the basis for an exploration of the fragility and strength of human ties and further develops what James once called that 'complex fate, being an American.' This volume prints the New York Edition texts of The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl, which include the prefaces that James wrote for each work as well as the illustrations he commissioned from photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn.


Product Information

Henry James was born in 1843 in new York, with Scottish and Irish ancestry. Having studied in New York and Europe, he became a lawyer, and started writing in 1865. Spending time in Paris he knew Flaubert and Turgenev, before moving to London and then Sussex. Philip Horne is a Reader in English at UCL. He is author of the acclaimed Henry James: A Life in Letters and series editor for several of Penguin Classics' Henry James' novels. Ruth Yeazell is the Chase Professor of English at Yale University.

General Fields

  • : 9780141441276
  • : Penguin UK
  • : Penguin
  • : August 2009
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Henry James
  • : Paperback