The Ambassadors

by Henry James

Overview

Sent from Massachusetts by the formidable Mrs Newsome to recall her son, Chad, from what she assumes to be a corrupt life in Paris, Strether finds his intentions subtly and profoundly transformed as he falls under the spell of the city and of his charge. He is quick to perceive that Chad has been not so much corrupted as refined, and over the course of the hot summer months in Paris he gradually realizes that this discovery and acceptance of Chad's unconventional new lifestyle must alter his own ideals and ambitions. One of Henry James's three final novels, all of which have sharply divided modern critics, The Ambassadors is the finely drawn portrait of a man's late awakening to the importance of morality that is founded not on the dictates of convention but on its value per se.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/13/2017
Label:	NAXOS AUDIO BOOKS
UPC:	9781781980668

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Henry James   Primary Artist

Editorial Reviews

'… the Cambridge Edition reproduces James’s fiction as it originally appeared to his contemporary book-buying public, collectively charting a half century of artistic development, stylistic invention, and cultural history. It gives readers options, and in the case of The Ambassadors the choice of the Cambridge Edition is a deeply satisfying one. … One of the Cambridge Edition's many strengths is the attention the editors pay to textual history and the historical development of James’s fiction within biographical, literary, and cultural contexts … many will agree that the Cambridge Edition is ‘quite the best, 'all round' edition …' Sarah Wadsworth, Review of English Studies

'[One of] two handsome volumes in their Cambridge maroon cloth covers with gilt stamping on the binding and James’s familiar signature on the covers are crucial additions to the resources scholars will use for generations to study the greatest novelist of the modern period.' John Carlos Rowe, The Henry James Review

'Given that the 'textual condition' of The Ambassadors (to use McGann’s phrase) is an excursion into chaos (to use James’s phrase), Nicola Bradbury should be crowned in laurels for guiding us with such precision through its various incarnations. The Cambridge edition gives us the evolution of The Ambassadors from 'dropped seed', as James called it, to full-flowering.' Frances Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher