This book contains a major novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, enriched and complemented by an analytical work of Henry James concerning the author and the novel. "The Scarlet Letter" A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his ""masterwork."" Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne...

"The Portrait of a Lady" is the most stunning achievement of Henry James's early period--in the 1860s and '70s when he was transforming himself from a talented young American into a resident of Europe, a citizen of the world, and one of the greatest novelists of modern times. A kind of delight at the success of this transformation informs every page of this masterpiece. Isabel Archer, a beautiful, intelligent, and headstrong American girl newly endowed with wealth and embarked in Europe on a treacherous journey to self-knowledge, is delineated with a magnificence that is at once casual and...

The Jolly Corner was first published in 1908 in The English Review. Henry James describes the adventures of Spencer Brydon as he explores the empty New York house where he grew up. He encounters a "sensation more complex than had ever before found itself consistent with sanity." The Jolly Corner is the nickname he gave to his childhood home. Brydon begins to believe that his alter ego-the ghost of the man he might have been is haunting the house. The theme of unlived lives runs throughout the story.

Henry James (1843 - 1916) was one of the leaders in the school of realism in fiction. He is known for his series of novels in which he portrayed the encounter of America with Europe. James is considered to be the master of the novel and novella. James wrote about personal relationships and the power within these relationships. James explored consciousness and perception from the point of view of a character within a tale. Pandora begins, "The process of inquiry had already begun for him, in spite of his having as yet spoken to none of his fellow-passengers; the case being that Vogelstein...

Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James that first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in June-July 1878, and in book form the following year. It portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates when they meet in Switzerland and Italy.

HENRY JAMES' CLASSIC TRAGIC NOVELLA In late 19th Century Switzerland, American Daisy Miller enters the staid life of Frederick Winterbourne. Although they are polar opposites, Winterbourne sets his sights on wooing Daisy... Society and even his own family are against the match, judging Daisy to be beneath them, little more than a flirt or an annoyance. Is Daisy an ingenue or something more scheming? Henry James' classic tragedy is as compelling now as when it was was published.

Henry James was an American born author and literary critic of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. He contributed to the criticism of fiction, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest freedom possible in presenting their view of the world. He spent most of his writing career in Britain. He is best known for a number of novels showing Americans encountering Europe and Europeans.

Four years ago-in 1874-two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not, perhaps, the most favorable one; still, it is not without its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well...

At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels, for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travelers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake-a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from the -grand hotel- of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder...