Henry James

"I always want to know the things one shouldn't do." "So as to do them?" asked her aunt. "So as to choose," said Isabel." ― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady The Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry James recounts the story of Isabel Archer, an elegant and spirited woman from American who moves to Europe to live at Touchett's after her father's death. She inherits wealth from Touchett and, not long after, she finds herself attracted to Gilbert Osmond, who behind his fa ade of charm and refinement is spiteful, egoist, and unfaithful. Despite having all the ingredients to secure a great life and future, Isabel becomes a victim of her cruel destiny.

"Every one asks me what I 'think' of everything," said Spencer Brydon; "and I make answeras I can-begging or dodging the question, putting them off with any nonsense. It wouldn'tmatter to any of them really," he went on, "for, even were it possible to meet in that standand-deliver way so silly a demand on so big a subject, my 'thoughts' would still be almostaltogether about something that concerns only myself." He was talking to Miss Staverton, with whom for a couple of months now he had availed himself of every possible occasion totalk; this disposition and this resource, this comfort and support, as the situation in factpresented itself, having promptly enough taken the first place in the considerable array ofrather unattenuated surprises attending his so strangely belated return toAmerica. Everything was somehow a surprise; and that might be natural when one had solong and so consistently neglected everything, taken pains to give surprises so muchmargin for play. He had given them more than thirty years-thirty-three, to be exact; andthey now seemed to him to have organised their performance quite on the scale of thatlicence. He had been twenty-three on leaving New York-he was fifty-six to-day; unlessindeed he were to reckon as he had sometimes, since his repatriation, found himselffeeling; in which case he would have lived longer than is often allotted to man. It wouldhave taken a century, he repeatedly said to himself, and said also to Alice Staverton, itwould have taken a longer absence and a more averted mind than those even of which hehad been guilty, to pile up the differences, the newnesses, the queernesses, above all thebignesses, for the better or the worse, that at present assaulted his vision wherever helooked. The great fact all the while, however, had been the incalculability; since he had supposedhimself, from decade to decade, to be allowing, and in the most liberal and intelligentmanner, for brilliancy of change. He actually saw that he had allowed for nothing; hemissed what he would have been sure of finding, he found what he would never haveimagined. Proportions and values were upside-down; the ugly things he had expected, theugly things of his far-away youth, when he had too promptly waked up to a sense of theugly-these uncanny phenomena placed him rather, as it happened, under the charm;whereas the "swagger" things, the modern, the monstrous, the famous things, those he hadmore particularly, like thousands of ingenuous enquirers every year, come over to see, were exactly his sources of disma

Do you want to read The Turn of The Screw? If so then keep reading... Widely recognized as one of literature's most gripping ghost stories, this classic tale of moral degradation concerns the sinister transformation of two innocent children into flagrant liars and hypocrites. The story begins when a governess arrives at an English country estate to look after Miles, aged ten, and Flora, eight. At first, everything appears normal but then events gradually begin to weave a spell of psychological terror. One night a ghost appears before the governess. It is the dead lover of Miss Jessel, the former governess. Later, the ghost of Miss Jessel herself appears before the governess and the little girl. Moreover, both the governess and the housekeeper suspect that the two spirits have appeared to the boy in private. The children, however, adamantly refuse to acknowledge the presence of the two spirits, in spite of indications that there is some sort of evil communication going on between the children and the ghosts. Without resorting to clattering chains, demonic noises, and other melodramatic techniques, this elegantly told tale succeeds in creating an atmosphere of tingling suspense and unspoken horror matched by few other books in the genre. Known for his probing psychological novels dealing with the upper classes, James in this story tried his hand at the occult - and created a masterpiece of the supernatural that has frightened and delighted readers for nearly a century. What are you waiting for The Turn of The Screw is one click away, select the "Buy Now" button in the top right corner NOW

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.