Washington Square

Plot

Set in New York this closely constructed novel belongs to Henry James's early period. Like The Portrait of a Lady it studies the plight of an innocent heiress who is deceived by the good looks and the charm of a worthless suitor; at the same time she is striving to be loyal to a cold and forbidding father."The delicate, feline Washington Square, perhaps the only novel in which a man has successfully invaded the feminine field and produced work comparable to Jane Austen's" - Graham Greene in The Lost Childhood"Washington Square is a "tale of silent suffering" that very obviously recalls Eugenie Grandet - to say which doesn't mean that it isn't a very fine original and very characteristic creation, fine in a way that is beyond Balzac" - F.R. Leavis in The Great TraditionSource: back cover of this edition