The Ambassadors

by Henry James, Harry Levin (Editor)

Overview

Concerned that her son Chad may have become involved with a woman of dubious reputation, the formidable Mrs Newsome sends her 'ambassador' Strether from Massachusetts to Paris to extricate him. Strether's mission, however, is gradually undermined as he falls under the spell of the city and finds Chad refined rather than corrupted by its influence and that of his charming companion, the comtesse de Vionnet. As the summer wears on, Mrs Newsome comes to the conclusion that she must send another envoy to Paris to confront the errant Chad, and a Strether whose view of the world has changed profoundly. James's favourite novel and one of the greatest of his late works, The Ambassadors is a subtle and often witty exploration of different American responses to a European environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141907604
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	09/25/1986
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
File size:	520 KB

About the Author

Henry James was born in 1843 in new York, with Scottish and Irish ancestry. Having studied in New York and Europe, he became a lawyer, and started writing in 1865. Spending time in Paris he knew Flaubert and Turgenev, before moving to London and then Sussex.

Harry Levin has written on James Joyce and Henry James for the Penguin Classics.

Date of Birth:

April 15, 1843

Date of Death:

February 28, 1916

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Attended school in France and Switzerland; Harvard Law School, 1862-63

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Copyright © 2008 Henry James.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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Table of Contents

	Introduction	7
	Note on the Text	31
	Preface to the New York Edition	33
	The Ambassadors	53
	Notes	513

Editorial Reviews

He is as solitary in the history of the novel as Shakespeare in the history of poetry.

Graham Greene

'… the Cambridge Edition reproduces James’s fiction as it originally appeared to his contemporary book-buying public, collectively charting a half century of artistic development, stylistic invention, and cultural history. It gives readers options, and in the case of The Ambassadors the choice of the Cambridge Edition is a deeply satisfying one. … One of the Cambridge Edition's many strengths is the attention the editors pay to textual history and the historical development of James’s fiction within biographical, literary, and cultural contexts … many will agree that the Cambridge Edition is ‘quite the best, 'all round' edition …' Sarah Wadsworth, Review of English Studies

'[One of] two handsome volumes in their Cambridge maroon cloth covers with gilt stamping on the binding and James’s familiar signature on the covers are crucial additions to the resources scholars will use for generations to study the greatest novelist of the modern period.' John Carlos Rowe, The Henry James Review

'Given that the 'textual condition' of The Ambassadors (to use McGann’s phrase) is an excursion into chaos (to use James’s phrase), Nicola Bradbury should be crowned in laurels for guiding us with such precision through its various incarnations. The Cambridge edition gives us the evolution of The Ambassadors from 'dropped seed', as James called it, to full-flowering.' Frances Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher