'You you a nun; you with your beauty defaced and your
nature wasted you behind locks and bars! Never, never,
if I can prevent it!' A wealthy American man of business
descends on Europe in search of a wife to make his
fortune complete. In Paris Christopher Newman is
introduced to Claire de Cintre, daughter of the ancient
House of Bellegarde, and to Valentin, her charming young
brother. His bid for Claire's hand receives an icy
welcome from the heads of the family, an elder brother
and their formidable mother, the old Marquise. Can they
stomach his manners for the sake of his dollars? Out of
this classic collision between the old world and the
new, James weaves a fable of thwarted desire that shifts
between comedy, tragedy, romance and melodrama a fable
which in the later version printed here takes on some of
the subtleties associated with this greatest novels.
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