Well i read this book in college, and then saw the movie as my first date with the girl I'm gonna marry. This hardcoevr addition was perfect for hidding a ring.

I really enjoyed this book,. I read it a few years ago, and it really stuck with me. I would give it more stars if I could.

It is so very well written and interesting to read.

... Personally, I think that the movie was not as bad as people say it is, but the book is much better all the same. The Portrait is not for everybody. If you like Victorian era and its writers, if you love Edwardian age and its geniuses, then you'll love this book.

The Portrait is about a young American woman, Isabel Archer, whose destiny seems to be one of the most unforgettable ones in the history of literature. She stands before a choice, not wanting to lose her own identity, she struggles with both her husband and society to free herself from the chains of morality and emotional torture that she was used to while being married to Osmond.

I think that The Portrait of a Lady is James's best novel. He surely showed the world the true beauty of language and its colorful expressions.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the joy an author takes in their subject. Certainly Henry James had but one: The innocence and naiveity of young America getting seduced, transformed and all-together changed by its confrontation with an old world Europe that is more brutal and desperate than all the regularly criticized American vulgarities. Now James was a consummate stylist--a brilliant writer of carefully diagrammed and constructed sentences and an, at times, of needless and excessively subtle growing menace. This can make for an often turgid, frequently dull narrative--the work of a man far more interested in style than in the substance of anything actually going on in his shrouded characters' lives.

Fortunately The Wings of the Dove is a better example of James at work: a plot that is outlined from the very beginning and a consistant approach to his theme that hardly ever bogs down with over-explanation. It is a good book, an at times even brilliant book, with a story that is clearly inevitable but with enough emphasis on its character's individual humanity to allow for disclosure of independant diversions.

I had little interest in this book when I started, my experience with James ruined in the past by the pretention of college professors and a sodden girth of contrary critical study, each promoting a specific agenda more concerned with condemning one view than with promoting another. This book is no doubt open to just as furious a debate as, say, Portrait of a Lady or The Bostonians (although with such a tame story, as with all, that I have considerable doubt that enough of today's readers can be inspired to even care--), but it remains more focused on telling its story than in confusing the reader by expressing the confused frame of its characters' perceptions.

Better than average stuff from that still school of dialectitions who seem somehow so nervous and rigid when relating all those dark urges they know are buried underneath.

This is a story with an evocative London and Venetian setting that features two young women; Kate, a rare English Rose, and Millie, an American heiress. Their 'instant sisterhood,'with its questionable roots and rapid development is dramatically loving on a surface that hides a whirlpool of darker motives. The English girl has the manor and the man; while the American has the wealth and the tragic curses that often accompany it. Beautiful Kate, is in love with Merton Densher, a journalist with an education and a job, but with very little money. Though they wish to marry, Kate's aunt, who is her benefactress, opposes it and threatens to cut her neice off, should she procede against her wishes. Kate also comes from a cursed family. Her mother is dead, from worry, generated from her rogue yet romantic father. His gambling and generally shameful behavior is only underscored by the fact that he rejects Kate's offer to give up her aunt's protection and come to him as his hostess. That he refuses and urges her back to the manor and the manipulation, that he is reinforced by her two elder sisters who also see dollar signs throughout; may serve as some justification for Kate's calculated and extreme betrayal and exploitation of the American, Millie.
James provides opulent settings and rare, ravishing beauty with an almost addictive love angle. Yet, the story is somewhat too narrow for the length of the book. The characters are believable and compelling, but they merely tease the reader into thinking that they are changing creating some confusion and sense of plodding. This book however, is a major moral statement about the nature of love and the fine line of sin that often intersects it. The decisions that Kate made and Merton reluctantly agreed to carry out, with regard to Millie; ultimately, like a devil's pact, lead to the desired end which is no longer either desirable or emotionally palatable to the victors. Beyond that, Kate too, cold and quick, is herself a victim; of a family, a culture and of a paradoxical passion which she cannot for all of her skepticism, eliminate.
Not the best James by a long shot, but an interesting peak into his later life insistence on retribution as dealt to those guilty of ravaging betrayal.

This is an unclassified version of a study originally done by OSS psychologists on the selection of personnel suitable for clandestine operations. This means those in which the individual is inserted into enemy territory and then left alone to live under deep cover, always living in a state of stress and tension.
Compare this with covert operations in which groups of individuals are inserted for the purpose of operational support to indigenous forces or for independent raids and sabotage. On covert ops there is usually a safe zone where some can relax and unwind while others watch and the individual is not only armed but often uniformed as well. Wearing a uniform does not protect one from summary execution as a spy if captured but it does gives a valid claim to POW status and one can hope it will be granted.
Thus, it takes a very special mental state to operate alone and to expect nothing but torture and death if captured. And hope that execution will be swift. Few can stand the tension that results from being alone in a hostile environment.

I didn't like the first person style in which most of this book is written. The times when someone else besides the governess is speaking it becomes hard to follow who is talking. However after completing this novella, I realize this style may have been needed to raise some questions in the reader's minds whether or not the governess is just imagining all that she sees, or whether there really are ghosts about the manor trying to corrupt these cherub like children to do unspeakable evil. At times I felt the suspense was forced. Too many pages were used to explain why she just didn't come out and confront the children in the first place, speak to their uncle, or speak to someone at the school. The introductory pages of people telling ghost stories seemed unnecessary as well since it is never tied back in to the story at the end. At times the story shows so much potential to build you up to a great surprise climax at the end, but then in my opinion, it falls short.

A young governess is hired to look after two seemingly angelic orphans--Flora and Miles. Seemingly, but why was Miles dismissed from school? and who are the strangers who the governess sees at windows? As in most of James' work, these questions are raised but not answered. However, in this novella he is presenting a gothic mystery, so the open ended questions are appropriate.

Apparently Turn of the Screw was controversial when James wrote it, because of it's presentation of children as potentially wicked. In the era of Littleton, I don't think there's anyone left who will argue that children are incapable of evil.

It's just a good creepy little tale.

GRADE: B

You guys missed the most dramatic plot twist in history!

Think about it there was no gost it was all in Governess's head, and she is the true villain.

This is trully the best horror book I have ever read.

I used this book to study for the ID boards in 2001. I found
it well organized and thorough enough for most topics. The travel medicine sections were excellent as were the sections on
bacterial infections. The chapters on viral infection could
have been a bit more thorough but were for the most part adequate. The sections on parasitic diseases were very well
written and appropriate for board review. Overall, I recommend
this text for ID fellows and ID practicing physicians but not for physicians in other fields.

The Bolivian Diary of Che Guevara is pretty fascinating, because when I thought about the Bolivian Adventure, Che being a horrible comandante and guerrilla leader always came to my mind. When I read the book I found that there were many aspects that didn't let Che prevail in Bolivia. From Mario Monje and PCB Party's betrayel, Fidel's lack of re-establishing contact with the guerrillas, lack of peasant recruiting to create a people's army, lack of conditions being right in country for an insurection, etc. Even with all these things stopping Che I was very amazed on how far he got, any other leader wouldn't have lasted 2 months. Che's tactics in his ambushes was incredible and even with lack of guerrillas he wiped out mostly all army forces that opposed him. Che was doing superb until US intervention. To understand Che's mission and how he failed is to understan Latin America today.

I received a copy of this volume unexpectedly. It crossed my path as if it were inserting itself in my life, so I felt duty-bound to work my way through it. I confess to a prejudice against James' work. During graduate school, one of my seminars required a close reading of Portrait of a Lady, and I found the entire experience unpleasant in the extreme. At the time, I thought that James was a snob, an elitist, and a reactionary. Try as I might, I could not develop an interest in idle upper-class characters who spend their time forming constant intrigues.

Thus, I approached this volume with a bit of trepidation, with a feeling that this was something I had to do. It reminded me somewhat how I felt in certain courses in graduate school when the professor would do all in his (or her) power to make sure that literature was more a burden than a joy. I was surprised by how much I liked most of the stories I read. There is an element of universality in many of James' stories, and they did not seem as dated as I was expecting. Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was a ghost tale or two, as well as a story about people trying to outdo a seer's prophecy. One of the most unusual bases for a love story has to be James' tale of a couple who meet when the man accidentally shoots and kills the woman's sickly child.

Some of James' descriptions are wonderful, and some of the characters memorable. For all that, about two-thirds of the way through the more than 900 pages of this volume, I simply could not read any more. I felt considerable relief when I placed the volume inside its dust cover and found it a nice place to rest in my library. I do not imagine the pages will see the light of day for quite some time.

Even after reading most of this volume, I am not a fan of James' work. He is undoubtedly an American master, but I just do not find his stories all that interesting. The only way I would read more of his work would be under the compulsion of being enrolled in another graduate seminar (not likely!).

I respect James' accomplishment, but I just do not like his work.

This book, which collects the first ten years of Henry James'short stories is, I think, a good place to begin with James--afterall, it's where he himself started. The stories vary in quality, and some of the earliest are rather amateurish compared to later James, but each has its rewards, and in reading them you can experience the development of a truly remarkable writer. Story by story it's a pleasure to read his almost liquid descriptions of people and places. Once in a while he almost seems surreal, as in this sentence from a story about the Civil War that he wrote in his early 20s: "The blood that has been shed gathers itself into a vast globule and drops into the ocean." Some of the stories are ghost tales rather in the line of Edgar Allen Poe, while others are romances or character studies. James rarely gives us a perfectly happy ending, but once in a while, as in the story "Travelling Companions," he lets himself write a charmingly Austinesque love story ending in marriage.

The price of this book is a bit high, but with your Amazon discount it's actually a bargain. As with all Library of America books, it's really the equivalent of at least 3 or 4 regular length books rolled into one. By using top quality thin acid free paper, they've somehow fit 960 pages of Henry James stories into a fine quality hardback book not much larger than a thick paperback. It's the kind of book you can take with you on the plane, and without the dustjacket it looks and feels as 19th century as the work inside. I find reading Henry James immensely relaxing and thought-provoking, and I can strongly recommend this book to any James fan, or anyone who is ready to make the plunge. END

Most of us discover Henry James in an English or American Literature class. I don’t think that I appreciated Henry James’ stories a student. He required too much attention from me as a reader. Now I continuously marvel at the two things that make him such a joy to read… 1. He writes so well. He has to be read slowly; every word counts; every sentence leads inevitability to the next; every paragraph is complete, and 2. He has so much to say. Each story is unique. Unlike many lesser writers, Henry James never repeats himself. He never wastes his talent.

A previous reviewer states that some of these stories are amateurish. I fail to see that. It was such a pleasure to read even his first story, A Tragedy of Error, which was published unsigned. Its main characters are a woman and her lover. The woman’s long absent husband is about to return, and they are about to be discovered. In just 22 pages, we can feel their fear of discovery and their evil as the lovers plot the husband’s murder.

In comparison, The Madonna of the Future, is a serene story set in Florence, Italy. It is told in the first person singular, with the narrator presented as an observer until close to the end. He encounters a painter whose masterpiece is much talked about but not seen. He quietly befriends Theobald, the painter, and through him meets the model for the Madonna, Serafina. Unintentionally, the narrator is a catalyst for the final actions of Theobald. The ending is compassionate, but as much of a surprise as that in A Tragedy of Error.

Other stories include sweet characters that turn out to be manipulative gold diggers, spoiled children who control loving parents, and polite fiends. Many of these characters have secrets that need to be disclosed to the reader; some are just romantic. Some characters behave well; many do not. James writes mostly of the upper classes, excessively polite, judgmental, repressed, and full of secrets.

This volume contains his earliest stories. I’ve never read a review that holds any of these stories to be a masterpiece. But James is such a brilliant writer that any of his work is worth the time to read. I highly recommend this volume as a start.

When Iain Softley's 'The Wings Of The Dove' was released in 1997, critics predictably complained that it was impossible to recreate on film the interiority, ambiguity, complexity or elusiveness of Henry James' late novels. An exasperated and mischievous Robin Wood suggests these citics bluffed a cultural knowledge they didn't possess, failing, for instance, to notice that the film was in no way a literal adaptation, but a radical reworking of a difficlt novel: 'the film's brilliance lies in its ability to stand as an autonomous work, and an intensely CREATIVE one, while remaining faithful to what might be called the novel's core'. With the exception of three scenes, every sequence in the film is the inspired invention of screenwriter Hossein Amimi, and even these three are very different in context, content and meaning to their originals.

Wood prefaces his typically enlightening monograph with a cri de coeur against dullards who moan about the lack of 'fidelity' of films taken from classic books. Their idea of faithfulness is a synoptic replication of the plot. Softley's film offers a more interesting alternative. Wood starts with a helpful introduction to the characteristics of James' late style, and the difficulties it presents for any adaptor; followed by a brief look at other 90s James films (Jane Campion's 'Portrait of a Lady'; Agniezcka Holland's 'Washington Square'). The bulk of the study is a minute scene-by-scene analysis of the film, showing how Softley and Amini tried to find cinematic equivalents for these characteristics, for instance by displacing psychology onto mise-en-scene, or by the invention of pregnant set-pieces that don't make immediate narrative sense, but which catch the Jamesian intuition of shadowy, unconscious forces manoeuvring seemingly (self-) conscious behaviour.

Wood is an enthusiastic and attentive guide, his analysis that of a patient teacher, pointing out important details or the meaning of particular stylistic choices. Wood, one of the first great auteur critics, famously rejected the move of film criticism in the 60s and 70s into the jargon-filled realm of theory, so his is a humanistic interpretation, firmly centred on character and narrative. He gives a greater centrality to the film's actors in the creation of meaning than more rigidly theoretical writers would allow. Because Softley is such an unquantified persona as an auteur, Wood is free to concentrate on text text text, a freedom he clearly relishes.

Because his empirical method is so focused on what is on the screen, it is easier to argue with his interpretationd and to point out the surprising errors of detail. With endearing modesty, he admits that he finds it increasingly difficult to pin down for the reader precisely the merits of the film, and acknowledges his uncertainty whether his own interpretations are correct. His main aim is to convey his own enthusiasm and love for this under-rated film - which he calls a 'flawed masterpiece', the imprecise role of Merton Densher being the film's least satisfactory element - and to look for ourselves. A film lover can ask for no greater gift.

All Henry Treece's adult works bring history to life with three-dimensional, essentially flawed characters, who evolve (for better or worse) throughout his books. His work can be sensuous, but never pornographic. His heros are not picaresque, but tend to be the subjects, rather than instigators or controllers of events.

Of particular note are his works based upon Ancient Greece (Jason, Oedipus Rex and, to a lesser degree, Electra).

The Dark Island deals with the advent of the Romans to Celtic Britain. Another work of note (The Golden Strangers) concerns the Celts and Iberians in Britain. 'The Great Captains' is an original, and convincing recreation of Arthurian Britain, light years from the romanticised versions.

Was there any American more European than Henry James? "The Ambassadors" begins in England and takes place mostly in Paris, and even though most of its characters are American, it is only referentially concerned with its author's native country. At the same time, the novel is not about Americans frivolously sowing their wild oats in exotic ancestral lands, but rather how they use their new settings to break away from restrictive American traditions and conventions and redefine their values and standards of living.

The main character is a late-middle-aged widower named Lambert Strether who edits a local periodical in the town of Woollett, Massachussetts, and is a sort of factotum for a wealthy industrialist's widow named Mrs. Newsome, a woman he may possibly marry. Strether's latest assignment from Mrs. Newsome is to go to Paris to convince her son, Chad, to give up what she assumes is a hedonistic lifestyle and return to Woollett to marry a proper, respectable young lady, his brother-in-law's sister to be specific. There is a greater ulterior motive, too -- the prosperity of the family business relies on Chad's presence.

In Paris, Strether finds that Chad has surrounded himself with a more stimulating group of friends, including a mousy aspiring painter named John Little Bilham, and that he is in love with an older, married woman named Madame de Vionnet. Providing companionship and counsel to Strether in Paris are his old friend, a retired businessman named Waymarsh, and a woman he met in England, named Maria Gostrey, who happens to be an old schoolmate of the Madame's. When it appears that Strether is failing in his mission to influence Chad, Mrs. Newsome dispatches her daughter and son-in-law, Jim and Sarah (Newsome) Pocock, and Jim's marriageable sister Mamie, to Paris to apply pressure. Ultimately, Strether, realizing that he's blown his chances with Mrs. Newsome and that Chad has the right idea anyway, finds himself enjoying the carefree life in Paris, which has liberated him from his lonely, stifling existence in Woollett.

Not having cared much for James's previous work "The Wings of the Dove," I felt something click with "The Ambassadors." Maybe it's because I found the story a little more absorbing and could empathize with Strether; maybe it's because my reading skills are maturing and I'm learning to appreciate James's dense, oblique prose style. I realize now that, for all the inherent difficulty in his writing, literature took a giant step forward with Henry James; if the Novel is, as he claimed, "the most independent, most elastic, most prodigious of literary forms," it takes a writer like James to show us how.

Reading "The Ambassadors," I was awed by the subtletly of emotion and social gesture James was able to describe. Clearly here was a crafted that had been years in the honing, and I appreciate the book's liberation from the plot-heavy mechanics of earlier books like "The Portrait of a Lady" and "The American." Everything is only subtly insinuated; whole lives can hinge upon half-meant gestures or long-buried social prejudices. In this way, the book has some of the wistful tone of "The Age of Innocence," but more depth if less elegant prose.

The prose is the thing -- James was dictating by this time (how on Earth does one dictate a novel?), and it shows. His chewy ruminations and meandering, endlessly parenthetical sentences are hard to digest. I think James went too far in his late style, and "The Ambassadors" might have benefited from a sterner editor. Still, this is an important book, absolutely worth the read.

James' novel affected me in part because I also fell in love with Paris, though not with a Parisian. The sinuous, difficult prose provides the perfect vehicle for the adventures of aging Lambert Strether as he goes to Paris to try to recover a New England son who will not return to his domineering mother and take a role in the family business--manufacturing an article that is never named. In Europe he meets a degree of sophistication he had never known but also a jungle of moral ambivalences. If I gave the novel only four stars, it is not because of the difficult prose, which I sometimes cursed, but because the crucial instance of moral turpitude which he describes seems practically banal now. I once bundled up all my Henry James books in a fit of pique and was on the way to taking them to a library book sale, but thought better of it. And it was a better thought.