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The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James |
I am really excited about this first book club selection and I hope that you will read this novel, one of my all-time favourites, along with me so that we can have a good chat about it. We'll meet here on
Saturday, June 29th to begin our book club discussion. Of course the post will remain open so if you can't check in on that first meeting day please feel free to drop in at any time.
Henry James was born in New York City in 1843 to a privileged and well-educated family and spent his youth traveling in Europe. He attended Harvard Law School briefly but realized he wanted to focus on his writing, by all accounts he was a hard worker and enjoyed early success as a novelist.
His older brother,
William James, was an important American philosopher.
I first read The Portrait of a Lady nearly twenty years ago but it is one of those novels that has really stayed with me. I'm certainly curious to read it again and observe the effect the novel will have on my thinking at this stage of my life.
Henry James excelled at observing Americans living in Europe and his style of psychological realism really explores the idea of the individual American personality set in the "old-world" customs of European society.
The Portrait of a Lady was written in the 1880's but went on to undergo revisions in 1908. It is considered by many to be Henry James' greatest work.
It has been published many times and it was fun for me to find these different book covers. I hope that you will be able to find a copy in your local library or in a used book store.
I decided to buy my own copy of the book to celebrate the occasion, it's one I'd like my daughters to read as well so hopefully I'll be sharing it around my household.
If you'd like to buy a copy you can
check out this option on amazon.com.
Here is an option on amazon.ca.
Last but not least,
here is the amazon.uk option.
I hope that you'll join me on the 29th of June for our first book club, and if you don't care for the selection this time around check back in July, maybe you'll enjoy the next classic pick.
Happy reading my friends and enjoy your weekend!
xoxDani
