Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
On the Eve
On the Eve appeared in 1860, two years before Fathers and Sons, Turgenev's most famous novel. It is set in the prior decade (by the end of t…
Witching Hill
The adventures of two young men, which may or may not have to do with the supernatural. - Summary by Nicholas Clifford
Sybil, or the Two Nations
Sybil is one of the most prominent political novels of the mid-nineteenth century, taking as its subject the "condition of England"…
Indian Summer (version 2)
Set in Florence's Anglo-American colony in the late 19th century, this is a romantic story of a middle-aged man, returning to the scene of h…
The Portrait of a Lady (version 3)
Our central character is Isabel Archer of Albany, New York, a young woman of no great means, and no great beauty (that is, by her own estima…
The Real Thing
The Real Thing is, on one level, a somewhat ironic tale of an artist and two rather particular models. Yet it also raises questions about th…
The Figure in the Carpet
The story ostensibly concerns a young literary critics who greatly admires the writer Hugh Vereker. A meeting with Vereker, however, shows h…
The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love (version 2)
A mysterious burgary of the British Consulate at Leghorn, coupled with the even more mysterious visit of an English yacht, leads to a trail …
Roderick Hudson
Published as a serial in 1875, Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in Europe, so important in much of J…
The Princess Casamassima
Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary unde…
The Pupil
Pemberton, a young American with an Oxford education and out of money, takes a job tutoring Morgan Moreen, the 12-year old son of an America…
Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69
Scrambles Amongst the Alps is one the great classics (some would say the greatest) of early mountaineering literature, and Edward Whymper (1…
Democracy - An American Novel
Not until after his death in 1918 was it revealed that Henry Adams was the anonymous author of Democracy, which had been published to great …
A Hazard of New Fortunes
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, …
The Spoils of Poynton
The recently widowed Adela Gereth, a lover of beauty and passionate collector of fine objects, strikes up a friendship with the young Fleda …
Lord Beaupre
What is a young man to do, when because of his pleasant disposition, and (of course) his considerable wealth, he finds himself besieged by b…
The Reverberator
Another Jamesian look at Americans in Paris. What happens when a reporter for an American scandal sheet (The Reverberator) is looking for a …
Sir Dominick Ferrand
"Levity" is not a word often applied to Henry James, but this story has about it an attractively lighthearted quality. It tells of…
A Little Tour in France
A splendid example of travel writing at its best, in this description of six week tour in France -- from Touraine, down to Provence, then ba…
The Chaperon
What on earth is a girl to do when London society has convicted her mother of a dreadful sin and has ostracized her? If blood is thicker tha…