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.… (more)
Language: English
Published in: 1881
Word count: 223,843 words (≈ about 15 hours)
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org
Copyright: Public Domain
A list of books that are commonly found on reading lists for US high school English classes.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction was selected by Charles W. Eliot, LLD (1834-1926), with notes and introductions by William Allan Neilson. It...