Henry James, página 12 de 54

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This brilliant satire of the women's rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena's heart and remove her from the limelight? "The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James," writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. "It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals...[written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed and wildly comic realism."

Un conjunto de relatos de medio y largo aliento, algunos de ellos casi novelas cortas, en los que se abordan los más diversos temas: un caso de pobreza extrema, el culto a los muertos, el cinismo, la traicion, la venganza... Pese a la diversidad de temas, en todos ellos destaca el talento narrativo y las dotes de observacion del autor para mostrarnos las caras mas sutiles de los conflictos con los que viven los personajes. Estas piezas del maestro ingles son una muestra de sus dotes para retratar y describir a los personajes, para dosificar y modular la intriga psicologica y para plantear los mas ineludibles problemas morales. Todo ello con un certero dominio del lenguaje que alcanza las mas altas cotas de la mejor literatura.

The shy and sweet daughter of a well-to-do physician, Catherine Sloper seems destined for lifelong spinsterhood until the sudden appearance of a dashing suitor who proposes marriage. Her adored father suspects the would-be fiance of fortune-hunting and threatens her with disinheritance, forcing Catherine to choose between lover and father. Setting his novel in New York City of the 1840s, James masterfully explores the moral consequences of a tender heart’s ruthless manipulation.

With a decaying Venetian villa as a backdrop, an anonymous narrator relates his obsessive quest for the personal documents of a deceased Romantic poet, one Jeffrey Aspern. Led by his mission into increasingly unscrupulous behavior, he is ultimately faced with relinquishing his heart's desire or attaining it at an overwhelming price.

Quelques-unes des plus belles nouvelles de la fin de la carrière de James figurent dans cette anthologie : « La Chose authentique », « Owen Wingrave », « La Vraie Chose à faire », « L'Arbre de la connaissance », « La Note du temps », « Le Gant de velours », « Le Banc de la désolation » composent ce recueil, où chaque récit dévoile progressivement, en nous tenant sous le charme, son symbole et son secret. Si tant d'artistes sont malheureux dans les nouvelles de James, c'est que l'alchimie de l'art, suggère J.-B. Pontalis, ne serait « qu'un remède à l'amour impossible ou interdit, une manière aussi de conjurer la désolation dont l'ultime figure est la mort ».

Famous novella, rich in psychological and social insight, chronicles a young American girl's willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences.

Una pieza selecta del autor de Otra vuelta de tuerca. El tema del fantasma es una de las más famosas historias de este maestro de la narración moderna.

When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken. Beneath his veneer of civilized behaviour, Isabel discovers cruelty and a stifling darkness. In this portrait of a ‘young woman affronting her destiny’, Henry James created one of his most magnificent heroines, and a story of intense poignancy.

DAISY MILLER is often thought of as the quintessential James novel: the story of the innocent abroad who is corrupted by contact with an older, more sophisticated society. Daisy, a delightfully uninhibited young American, scandalizes the European community in which she is a visitor with her high spirits and disregard of ancient conventions. After an innocent but unwise tryst with an Italian admirer to see the Colosseum in Rome by moonlight, Daisy contracts malaria and dies. The pathos of her death is compounded by the fact that another admirer, Winterbourne, is never entirely convinced that Daisy is merely the frank, innocent girl she seems.

A young woman arrives at a large country house. Her job is to look after the two children who live there, but she soon discovers that there is something very strange about both the house and the children. The longer she stays, the more she feels that the two children are in danger - or is it that the children are the danger, and the person in danger is herself?.