Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69
Scrambles Amongst the Alps is one the great classics (some would say the greatest) of early mountaineering literature, and Edward Whymper (1…
The Spoils of Poynton
The recently widowed Adela Gereth, a lover of beauty and passionate collector of fine objects, strikes up a friendship with the young Fleda …
The Problem of China
In 1920-21 Bertrand Russell lived and taught in Peking (Beijing), publishing this book on his return to England. In 1920 he had visited Bols…
Domestic Manners of the Americans
Next to de Alexis de Tocquville's almost contemporary Democracy in America, Frances Trollope's work may be the most famous (or at least noto…
On the Eve
On the Eve appeared in 1860, two years before Fathers and Sons, Turgenev's most famous novel. It is set in the prior decade (by the end of t…
The Portrait of a Lady (version 3)
Our central character is Isabel Archer of Albany, New York, a young woman of no great means, and no great beauty (that is, by her own estima…
A Little Tour in France
A splendid example of travel writing at its best, in this description of six week tour in France -- from Touraine, down to Provence, then ba…
The Vicar of Tours
Over twenty years before Anthony Trollope wrote The Warden, in which the gentle but unfortunate Rev. Septimus Harding becomes the prey of an…
The Papers
Today the world is awash with “celebrities” whose only accomplishment is being celebrated by the media in all its various forms. Henry James…
Democracy - An American Novel
Not until after his death in 1918 was it revealed that Henry Adams was the anonymous author of Democracy, which had been published to great …
Peccavi
How does a man who as committed a heavy sin — not a crime, but a sin with terrible consequences — atone for his behaviour? What if the man i…
The Princess Casamassima
Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary unde…
Sir Dominick Ferrand
"Levity" is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has about it an attractively lighthearted quality. It tells of…
The Real Thing
The Real Thing is, on one level, a somewhat ironic tale of an artist and two rather particular models. Yet it also raises questions about th…
The Siege of London
In this work, first published in 1883, James once again writes of an American trying to settle in England. The woman at the center, however,…
A Hazard of New Fortunes
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, …
La Grande Bretèche
La Grande Bretèche is an addendum to Balzac's Another Study of Woman, and is the final of a set of stories told around a dinner table…
A Little Swiss Sojourn
A charming brief account of a two months' autumnal stay on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. Howells, who was there with his family travelin…
The Pupil
Pemberton, a young American with an Oxford education and out of money, takes a job tutoring Morgan Moreen, the 12-year old son of an America…
The Figure in the Carpet
The story ostensibly concerns a young literary critics who greatly admires the writer Hugh Vereker. A meeting with Vereker, however, shows h…