The Ambassadors (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Henry James
- First Published: 1903
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Values, Mothers, Parents and children, Traveling or travelers, France or French people, Twentieth century, Europe or Europeans, Paris, Ethics, Aristocracy or aristocrats
- Locales: Paris, France, England
The Ambassadors, the first-written but second-published of James's final trilogy, resurrects his early preoccupation with the effect of European travel on Americans. James's handling of the theme here, however, is infinitely richer and more nuanced than in his earlier fiction. Above all, the ambiguous relationship between aesthetic sensibility and conventional moral values is rendered with consummate skill.
Lambert Strether, a middle-aged bachelor from Woolett, Massachusetts, has been sent to Paris to bring home the son of the woman he is planning to marry, Mrs. Newsome....
[The entire page is 828 words long]
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