The Collected Works of Henry James, Vol. 05 (of 36): The Real Thing and Other Tales; The Portrait of a Lady - Couverture souple

James, Henry

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1662714009 ISBN 13 : 9781662714009

Editeur : Bookland Classics, 2020

Synopsis

"The Real Thing" is a short story by Henry James, first syndicated by S. S. McClure in multiple American newspapers and then published in the British publication Black and White in April 1892 and the following year as the title story in the collection, The Real Thing and Other Stories published by Macmillan. This story, often read as a parable, plays with the reality-illusion dichotomy that fascinated James, especially in the later stages of his career. For the illustrator who narrates the story, the genuine article proves all too useless for his commercial purposes. The story portrays the unfortunate victims of a society in which reality and representation are closely intertwined in ways that make art a diffit project to disentangle the two.


The narrator, an unnamed illustrator and aspiring painter, hires a faded genteel couple, the Monarchs, as models, after they have lost most of their money and must find some line of work. They are the "real thing" in that they perfectly represent the aristocratic type, but they prove inflexible for the painter's work. He comes to rely much more on two lower-class subjects who are nevertheless more capable: Oronte, an Italian, and Miss Churm, a lower-class Englishwoman.


The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880-81 and then as a book in 1881. It is one of James's most popular long novels and is regarded by critics as one of his finest.


The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who, "confronting her destiny", finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James's novels, it is set in Europe, mostly England and Italy.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Bookland Classics
• Date d'édition: 2020
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1662714009
• ISBN 13: 9781662714009
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 852
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible