Wings of the Dove James Henry

Synopsis: Confronting a Bronzino portrait in an English country house, a young American heiress comes face to face with her own predicament. Eager for life, eager for love, she embarks on her European adventure, warming to the admiration of her new friends Kate Croy and Merton Densher. For Milly Theale, who seems to have the world before her and at her feet, is fatally ill.

This edition of James's poignant and dramatic novel is based on the revised New York Edition. ButMerton and Kate are secretly engaged, and come to see in this angel with a thumping bank account as a solution to their own problems.For the remarkable Kate, scheming, passionate, poetic, also wants to live... The cover pictures theBronzino portrait which is the focus of the key scene in the book.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe.

Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Review: The Wings of the Dove is a classic example of Henry James's morality tales that play off the naiveté of an American protagonist abroad. In early-20th-century London, Kate Croy and Merton Densher are engaged in a passionate, clandestine love affair.

Croy is desperately in love with Densher, who has all the qualities of a potentially excellent husband: he's handsome, witty, and idealistic--the one thing he lacks is money, which ultimately renders him unsuitable as a mate. By chance, Croy befriends a young American heiress, MillyTheale. When Croy discovers that Theale suffers from a mysterious and fatal malady, she hatches a plan that can give all three characters something that they want--at a price.

Croy and Densher plan to accompany the young woman to Venice where Densher, according to Croy's design, will seduce the ailing heiress. The two hope that Theale will find love and happiness in her last days and--when she dies--will leave her fortune to Densher, so that he and Croy can live happily ever after. The scheme that at first develops as planned begins to founder when Theale discovers the pair's true motives shortly before her death.

Densher struggles with unanticipated feelings of love for his new paramour, and his guilt may obstruct his ability to avail himself of Theale's gift.James deftly navigates the complexities and irony of such moral treachery in this stirring novel.