Washington Square (Penguin Classics)
by Henry James
Our Price: $9.00
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $3.03 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Henry JamesEditor: Philip Horne
Editor: Prof. Martha Banta
Introduction: Prof. Martha Banta
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-12-18
ISBN: 0141441364
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Washington Square (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: "A Thing of Beauty ...
Summary: 5 Stars
... isn't always such a joy forever, after all." Henry James's short novel, Washington Square, is a thing of beauty, a nearly perfect 'historical' novel as shapely as a Grecian Urn, which has been the joy of English Department scholars, film makers, and more than a few readers ever since its publication in 1890. But James detested it and attempted to revise it for a later edition, only to conclude that the task was hopeless. To a certain degree, 'beauty' is its subject. The beautiful figures in the novel -- beautiful in any sense, physical or metaphysical -- turn out to be loathsomely selfish, moral failures -- while the least beautiful figure muddles and suffers through to a degree of decency and moral insight. Likewise, the fashionable heart of Manhattan in 1840, the beauty spot called Washington Square, is exposed as emblematic of a crass, greedy, egotistical society of climbers and grabbers.
Dr. Sloper, whose mansion on Washington Square is the setting for most chapters of the novel, is a popular and successful society doctor, made wealthy by his marriage to a New York belle and by his energetic practice. He's a man of intelligence and wit, with a penchant for irony and a well-concealed fund of narcissism. His beautiful wife dies young, leaving him a daughter who is neither beautiful nor intelligent. Catherine, the daughter, is pudgy, dull, and docile. Despite being the heiress of a considerable fortune, she reaches her early twenties without attracting a suitor. Then a handsome, clever, stylish stranger, Morris Townsend, comes courting with suspicious alacrity. The Doctor's widowed sister, a resident in the Washington square mansion, fancies herself a romantic and a matchmaker. The Doctor is offended at the prospect that his daughter, awkward embarrassment that she is to his self-esteem, should fall prey to a mercenary wastrel who would thereby carry off the fruits of his professional labors. He forcefully denounces the courtship and threatens 'disinheritance.'
And that's the polished formula for a Victorian novel of manners-and-marriage, isn't it? A novel in the style of Jane Austen or the Brontes, told by an omniscient third-person narrator who often speaks out of the frame directly to the reader! An 'old-fashioned' novel, in short, for Henry james to have written in 1890, especially when everyone knew that he despised the works of Austen! But Henry James was a perverse critter in his literary motives. Washington Square is also a 'historical' novel, set in New York in the 1840s, the very decade of the greatest popularity of Austen-like novels of romance. It's worth noting that James was born in New York City in 1843, making this novel effectively a portrayal of the society of his parents' generation. Nostalgia? Ha! You'll need to read it and look hard for any trace of that!
So it's my thesis - my guess - that James intended Washington Square as a moral rebuttal to the sloppy frippery and psychological unreality of his feminine novelist predecessors. I seldom read literary criticism; I got too much of that in college. If any critic has already stated this same thesis, I'm unaware of it and I can't be accused of plagiarism. But James was wrong to scorn his own brilliance in this novel. The four principal characters -- father, daughter, suitor, meddlesome aunt -- are staggeringly "real" and fully realized psychological portrayals. No one has ever made better reading out of four such unattractive faulty human beings.
Summary of Washington Square (Penguin Classics)
When timid and plain Catherine Sloper acquires a dashing and determined suitor, her father, convinced that the young man is nothing more than a fortune-hunter, decides to put a stop to their romance. Torn between her desire to win her father's love and approval and her passion for the first man who has ever declared his love for her, Catherine faces an agonising dilemma, and becomes all too aware of the restrictions that others seek to place on her freedom. James' masterly novel deftly interweaves the public and private faces of nineteenth-century New York society; it is also a deeply moving study of innocence destroyed.Classics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Classics Books
Native sonby Richard Wright
Perennial Library; Published: 1987; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.75
Native Son: And How Bigger Was Bornby Richard Wright
Perennial; Published: 1993-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.84
Raphael and the Noble Taskby Catherine Salton
Harper; Published: 2000-10-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops:
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.77
Price in other shops:
The Great Divorce CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2003-11-25; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $12.65
Price in other shops:
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Black Coffee (Poirot)by Agatha Christie
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2002-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $68.32
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1960s)by Joan Didion
Flamingo; Published: 2001-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.25
Similar Books and other products
Much Ado About Nothing (Dover Thrift Editions)by William Shakespeare
Dover Publications; Dover Publications; Published: 1994-10-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Pride and Prejudice (Dover Thrift Editions)by Jane Austen
Dover Publications; Dover Publications; Published: 1995-04-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.45
Price in other shops:
Othello (Pelican Shakespeare)by William Shakespeare
Penguin Classics; Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.96
Price in other shops:
The Sonnets (The Pelican Shakespeare)by William Shakespeare
Penguin Classics; Published: 2001-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.28
Price in other shops:
Pygmalion (Penguin Classics)by George Bernard Shaw
Penguin Group USA; Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-02-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.25
Price in other shops:
The Awakening and Selected Stories (Penguin Classics)by Kate Chopin
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-02-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)by Gustave Flaubert
Penguin Classics; Published: 2002-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.65
Price in other shops:
A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)by Henrik Ibsen
Penguin Classics; Published: 1965-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
High Fidelityby Nick Hornby
Riverhead Trade; Published: 1996-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
The Moviegoerby Walker Percy
Vintage; Published: 1998-04-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.84
Price in other shops: