Showing results for "The Portrait of a Lady" in Romance

England, 1859. Lady Georgiana Cressington is living a nightmare. Coerced by her father into returning to her childhood home, the young widow becomes a pawn in another of his heartless games. Her return to Summerfield Hall reunites her with the man she once loved before their hearts were shattered by a devastating betrayal.

Civility and society come head to head in Henry James’ seminal work. The heroine of this powerful novel is the spirited young American Isabel Archer. Blessed by nature and fortune, she journeys to Europe to seek her future, but what she finds may prove to be her undoing. She is courted by three men: an English aristocrat, an American gentleman, and a sensitive expatriate. Her invalid cousin becomes her benefactor and adviser.

For Christmas, soft-spoken Lady Jenny Windham craves the freedom to pursue her artistic ambitions, though it will mean scandalizing her ducal parents and abandoning all hope of a family of her own. She confides her plans to successful artist Elijah Harrison when he's commissioned to paint a portrait of her small nephews, because assisting Elijah will bring Jenny that much closer to her heart's desire - won't it?

The Portrait of a Lady was first published in 1881 and is arguably Henry James' finest novel. It is set in England and Europe, but the main characters tend to be American, including one of fiction's great heroines, Isabel Archer, around whom the plot revolves. A young innocent abroad, Isabel visits her American relatives in England, the Touchetts, and soon befriends her cousin, Ralph.