Henry James (1843��916) hashad many biographers, but Michael Gorra has taken an original approach to thisgreat American progenitor of the modern novel, combining elements of
biography,criticism, and travelogue in re-creating the dramatic backstory of James��masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady (1881). Gorra, aneminent literary critic, shows how this novel��he
scandalous story of theexpatriate American heiress Isabel Archer��ame to be written in the firstplace. Traveling to Florence, Rome, Paris, and England, Gorra sheds new lighton James�� family,
the European literary circles��eorge Eliot, Flaubert,Turgenev��n which James made his name, and the psychological forces thatenabled him to create this most memorable of female protagonists.
Appealing toreaders of Menand�� The Metaphysical Club andMcCullough�� The Greater Journey, Portrait of a Novel provides a brilliant account of the greatest
Americannovel of expatriate life ever written. It becomes a piercing detective story onits own.
