Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

Pat Righelato (University of Reading)

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Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1880 - 1881

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” The opening of Henry James's

The Portrait of a Lady

offers the lawn of an old English country-house on a perfect summer afternoon, replete with three figures “not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony”, the wealthy American owner and his son and, for good measure, an English lord. The afternoon light is of “the finest and rarest quality” (17). Later in the novel, tea is taken in the garden of a villa on the outskirts of Florence “on a soft afternoon in the full maturity of the Tuscan spring” (217), and then again in the interior of a palace in Rome in which the hostess “framed in the gilded…

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2815 words

Citation: Righelato, Pat. "The Portrait of a Lady". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 May 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7428, accessed 01 April 2025.]

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