| Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece Contributor(s): Gorra, Michael (Author) |
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ISBN: 0871406705 ISBN-13: 9780871406705 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company OUR PRICE: $25.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2013 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures - Literary Criticism | American - General |
| Dewey: B |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.5" W x 8.2" (0.70 lbs) 416 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1900-1949 - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Henry James (1843-1916) has had many biographers, but Michael Gorra has taken an original approach to this great American progenitor of the modern novel, combining elements of biography, criticism, and travelogue in re-creating the dramatic backstory of James's masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady (1881). Gorra, an eminent literary critic, shows how this novel--the scandalous story of the expatriate American heiress Isabel Archer--came to be written in the first place. Traveling to Florence, Rome, Paris, and England, Gorra sheds new light on James's family, the European literary circles--George Eliot, Flaubert, Turgenev--in which James made his name, and the psychological forces that enabled him to create this most memorable of female protagonists. Appealing to readers of Menand's The Metaphysical Club and McCullough's The Greater Journey, Portrait of a Novel provides a brilliant account of the greatest American novel of expatriate life ever written. It becomes a piercing detective story on its own. |
Contributor Bio(s): Gorra, Michael: - Michael Gorra teaches English at Smith College. His books include After Empire, The Bells in Their Silence, and, as editor, the Norton Critical Edition of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. |