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The Bostonians (Modern Library Classics)
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Manufacturer: Modern Library
Author: Henry James
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Our Price: $8.95
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Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Modern Library
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The Bostonians (Modern Library Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780812969962
ISBN: 0812969960
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2003-12-09
Publisher: Modern Library
Product Release Date: 2003-12-09
Studio: Modern Library
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780812969962
ISBN: 0812969960
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2003-12-09
Publisher: Modern Library
Product Release Date: 2003-12-09
Studio: Modern Library
Editorial Review of The Bostonians (Modern Library Classics)
This brilliant satire of the women’s rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight?
“The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”
“The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”
Customer Reviews of The Bostonians (Modern Library Classics)
Customer Rating: 
Review Summary: James In Top Form
Review: In this outing, as with other of Henry James's novels, the reader will continually be bowled over by this author's knack for language, his absolute comfort at moving conceptual mountains (and plot) with precise bursts of verbal dynamite.
That said, James's zeal for describing his characters' psychological phenomena with scientific precision, can sometimes cause his books to bog down. James is sometimes simply incomprehensible -- he will be developing a thought, or a line of psychological action on the part of a character, and suddenly he will lose you in a welter of subordinate clauses and pronouns that seem to have become dis-lodged from their referents. This is a problem particularly in later James (which I would gloss as about 1885 onwards).
"The Bostonians" was written in 1885, so it is "early late" James, if such a designation may be used. The language is just beginning to move towards that absolute obscurantism which would become his primary mode of expression for "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Wings of the Dove", and away from the relative simplicity and relaxed wit of "The American".
Aside from the means of expression, James has probably never been cleverer about his portrayals of character. Depending upon your own opinions regarding feminism -- James's own are not made clear within the four corners of this book -- you will find Verena's self-created dilemma between her sense of duty to Olive (and her cause) and her feelings for Ransom to be comic, tragic, or an admixture of both. It is to James's eternal credit that he leaves such a question so open.
"The Bostonians" is like an old wine; you have to savor it, to mull over it a bit, pursing your lips at its complexities, sucking your teeth at its bitterness, smiling at last, with satisfaction over what you have just swallowed.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: ****... almost *****
Review: "The Bostonians", a novel from the middle period of Henry James' writing career, was apparently not appreciated for a long time. It is, in a way, not surprising, because the criticism of his contemporaries is very acute there. It is good, however, that later on this novel got the praise, which it undoubtedly deserves.
Set in Boston of the end of nineteenth century, after the Civil War, the book tells the story of Verena Tarrant, a fresh, innocent young woman of extraordinary oratory talent. She is a daughter of a "mesmeric healer", who trains her for performance. Verena can captivate the audience with her speeches, not necessarily because of their content, but because of her beauty and appeal. During one of the early private shows, she gets the attention of Olive Chancellor, a slightly older woman devoted to the cause of feminism. She befriends Verena, takes her under her wing (paying her parents considerable sums of money) and trains her to give lectures about suffrage and the freedom of women, hoping to live with Verena continuously, forming what was then called a "Boston marriage" (James' sister formed such union with another woman).
Unfortunately for Olive, at the same show Verena catches the eye of her cousin from the Mississippi, Basil Ransom, a conservative lawyer and a veteran of the civil war from the Southern side. He wants to marry Verena, which means the betrayal of Olive's ideals...
James again succeeded in portraying the typical society members with irony and wit. Interestingly, the female characters prevail in this novel and each of them is unique - wealthy and educated, but stubborn and limited in her artificial want of progress Olive, natural, innocent and, ultimately, silly Verena, Mrs Adeline Luna, Olive's sister, who, being a merry widow, represents everything what Olive despises, old Miss Birdseye, a precursor of the women's movement (based on a real figure, Miss Elizabeth Peabody), or my favorite, Doctor Prance, who is really the personification of the ultimate goal of the movement (she is a professional, no-nonsense woman), but sees the absurdity of Olive's actions very clearly. The only fully developed male character in "The Bostonians" is Basil Ransom; the other few are merely sketched types (like Matthias Pardon, the journalist, Henry Burrage, the Harvard boy, or Selah Tarrant, Verena's father). There are also many such sketched female types, which give in total an extraordinary array of figures. All the main characters are very human, not being unanimously good or bad, but possessing multifaceted, complex personalities. They are also not undoubtedly likeable or despicable, however, Verena with all her faults is probably the nicest, and Olive the most pathetic (James seems rather critical of the feminist movement in the form described in his novel, seemingly treating it as a whim of idle women from the higher class and opposing them reasonable women like Dr Prance; despite the obvious achievements of the movement which we see now, there is something to his opinion).
The historical Boston (the action takes place mainly in the city and its suburbs, Cambridge, the home of Verena's parents, and Roxbury, where Miss Birdseye lives; Olive lives on Charles Street - all the locations are introduced with their social meaning of the time; apart from that some events take place in New York City and on Cape Cod) is described amazingly (the Oxford World's Classics edition has also a city plan at the end), which adds to the historical value of the novel. The only flaw for the modern reader, used to the fast action, may be the slow pace and many descriptions of places, emotions, characters - this is the book which should be tasted with pleasure, not rushed through.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Boston Was Full Of Feminists: But James Was Not One Of Them
Review: By the time Henry James had written THE BOSTONIANS in 1886, he was well in his mid section of novel writing. Most of his "American" novels were done but in this one for the first time he chose to use the burgeoning feminist movement as a backdrop for the plot. There is nothing in the story to suggest that James carried a warm place in his heart for feminism. In fact in the character of Olive Chancellor, James seems only too delighted to point out the foilbles of this leader of Boston's feminist movement.
Henry James knew well the importance that Boston held to American political and social history. Olive Chancellor is a product of what she sees as the proud history of that city. She sees herself as the latest torchbearer of a school of thought that began with Thoreau and Emerson. And the latest sparkle to the torch is feminism. Olive is perceptive enough to recognize that she cannot carry the torch by herself so she seeks someone to whom she may safely pass it. This someone is Verena Tarrant, a young and attractive protege whose own flaws are totally unseen by Olive. To begin with, Verena is very much like an "unliberated" woman of today. She is hip, cool, and well-dressed, but she has no tradition of any sort behind her upon which Olive can build. Further, her chief goal in life is to get married, a distinctly unfeminine trait. Complicating Olive's incessant moralizing to Verena, Basil Ransom enters as a handsome lawyer who quickly falls for Verena and she for him. Basil is the male equivalent of Verena. He has scarcely a thought in his head that does not involve winning a case or winning Verena's heart. In the battle between Olive and Basil for the heart and soul of Verena, there is no contest. By the end of the novel, Basil literally sweeps and swoops Verena off her feet and out of town, leaving a disconsolate Olive to ponder her doleful future.
James slowly builds THE BOSTONIANS up to a crescendo of irony. When one considers how much time Olive has spent with Verena inculcating her with feminist thought, one would think that at least part of Olive's exuberance would have rubbed off. The very last page shows James at his ironic best. Basil is a typical macho man who expects his wife to be in the kitchen or the bedroom, without many other stops in between. When he sweeps Verena off her feet, she is at first glad that she chose Basil over Olive, but then "she was in tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to shed." The future for Verena contrapuntally indicates James' own ideas about the lasting power and effect of feminism upon impressionable female minds.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Insightful read.
Review: This book is about a couple of women who help shine a light on women's rights movement in the 19th century. It takes place in New England. Henry James is an excellent writer. They way he digs into the minds of his characters really alows you to see them like as if you were their god. Read the book prior to watching the movie; it seemes to me that the movie comes off as a little obsessive; references to Ms. Chancellor come off homosexual and attached to Verena Tarrant which isn't true. The ending to the book and how Verena feels about the decision she has made will also suprise you because it will give you a deeper insight about the meaning for Verenas decision and her personal reflections whereas in the movie you really can't tell what she's thinking. Prior to reading the book, when I watched the movie, my feeling was that Henry James may have been synical about women and their sex but he isn't. Henry James empowers women allowing the world to see that even in the 19th century, when people thought that women were of very little use outside of the kitchen, that they are actually intellectual, brilliant and very insightful, as you may observe in his other works. He doesn't make his female characters look or act MAD but rather sincere.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Glad I stumbled on to this one
Review: I picked this one up out of the bin because it sounded somewhat familiar. I would have never picked out a story that revolved around the women's' rights movement during the 19th century unless it was nonfiction.
This book is a treat through and through. The characters are deep, the language interesting and the prose witty. It has a very simple plot, but the journey is great. This was my first Henry James book, but after reading this one, will not hesitate to read another. James takes pride in his craftsmanship and we the readers benefit. Do yourself a favor and take a step back in time and read this one.
Review Summary: James In Top Form
Review: In this outing, as with other of Henry James's novels, the reader will continually be bowled over by this author's knack for language, his absolute comfort at moving conceptual mountains (and plot) with precise bursts of verbal dynamite.
That said, James's zeal for describing his characters' psychological phenomena with scientific precision, can sometimes cause his books to bog down. James is sometimes simply incomprehensible -- he will be developing a thought, or a line of psychological action on the part of a character, and suddenly he will lose you in a welter of subordinate clauses and pronouns that seem to have become dis-lodged from their referents. This is a problem particularly in later James (which I would gloss as about 1885 onwards).
"The Bostonians" was written in 1885, so it is "early late" James, if such a designation may be used. The language is just beginning to move towards that absolute obscurantism which would become his primary mode of expression for "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Wings of the Dove", and away from the relative simplicity and relaxed wit of "The American".
Aside from the means of expression, James has probably never been cleverer about his portrayals of character. Depending upon your own opinions regarding feminism -- James's own are not made clear within the four corners of this book -- you will find Verena's self-created dilemma between her sense of duty to Olive (and her cause) and her feelings for Ransom to be comic, tragic, or an admixture of both. It is to James's eternal credit that he leaves such a question so open.
"The Bostonians" is like an old wine; you have to savor it, to mull over it a bit, pursing your lips at its complexities, sucking your teeth at its bitterness, smiling at last, with satisfaction over what you have just swallowed.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: ****... almost *****
Review: "The Bostonians", a novel from the middle period of Henry James' writing career, was apparently not appreciated for a long time. It is, in a way, not surprising, because the criticism of his contemporaries is very acute there. It is good, however, that later on this novel got the praise, which it undoubtedly deserves.
Set in Boston of the end of nineteenth century, after the Civil War, the book tells the story of Verena Tarrant, a fresh, innocent young woman of extraordinary oratory talent. She is a daughter of a "mesmeric healer", who trains her for performance. Verena can captivate the audience with her speeches, not necessarily because of their content, but because of her beauty and appeal. During one of the early private shows, she gets the attention of Olive Chancellor, a slightly older woman devoted to the cause of feminism. She befriends Verena, takes her under her wing (paying her parents considerable sums of money) and trains her to give lectures about suffrage and the freedom of women, hoping to live with Verena continuously, forming what was then called a "Boston marriage" (James' sister formed such union with another woman).
Unfortunately for Olive, at the same show Verena catches the eye of her cousin from the Mississippi, Basil Ransom, a conservative lawyer and a veteran of the civil war from the Southern side. He wants to marry Verena, which means the betrayal of Olive's ideals...
James again succeeded in portraying the typical society members with irony and wit. Interestingly, the female characters prevail in this novel and each of them is unique - wealthy and educated, but stubborn and limited in her artificial want of progress Olive, natural, innocent and, ultimately, silly Verena, Mrs Adeline Luna, Olive's sister, who, being a merry widow, represents everything what Olive despises, old Miss Birdseye, a precursor of the women's movement (based on a real figure, Miss Elizabeth Peabody), or my favorite, Doctor Prance, who is really the personification of the ultimate goal of the movement (she is a professional, no-nonsense woman), but sees the absurdity of Olive's actions very clearly. The only fully developed male character in "The Bostonians" is Basil Ransom; the other few are merely sketched types (like Matthias Pardon, the journalist, Henry Burrage, the Harvard boy, or Selah Tarrant, Verena's father). There are also many such sketched female types, which give in total an extraordinary array of figures. All the main characters are very human, not being unanimously good or bad, but possessing multifaceted, complex personalities. They are also not undoubtedly likeable or despicable, however, Verena with all her faults is probably the nicest, and Olive the most pathetic (James seems rather critical of the feminist movement in the form described in his novel, seemingly treating it as a whim of idle women from the higher class and opposing them reasonable women like Dr Prance; despite the obvious achievements of the movement which we see now, there is something to his opinion).
The historical Boston (the action takes place mainly in the city and its suburbs, Cambridge, the home of Verena's parents, and Roxbury, where Miss Birdseye lives; Olive lives on Charles Street - all the locations are introduced with their social meaning of the time; apart from that some events take place in New York City and on Cape Cod) is described amazingly (the Oxford World's Classics edition has also a city plan at the end), which adds to the historical value of the novel. The only flaw for the modern reader, used to the fast action, may be the slow pace and many descriptions of places, emotions, characters - this is the book which should be tasted with pleasure, not rushed through.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Boston Was Full Of Feminists: But James Was Not One Of Them
Review: By the time Henry James had written THE BOSTONIANS in 1886, he was well in his mid section of novel writing. Most of his "American" novels were done but in this one for the first time he chose to use the burgeoning feminist movement as a backdrop for the plot. There is nothing in the story to suggest that James carried a warm place in his heart for feminism. In fact in the character of Olive Chancellor, James seems only too delighted to point out the foilbles of this leader of Boston's feminist movement.
Henry James knew well the importance that Boston held to American political and social history. Olive Chancellor is a product of what she sees as the proud history of that city. She sees herself as the latest torchbearer of a school of thought that began with Thoreau and Emerson. And the latest sparkle to the torch is feminism. Olive is perceptive enough to recognize that she cannot carry the torch by herself so she seeks someone to whom she may safely pass it. This someone is Verena Tarrant, a young and attractive protege whose own flaws are totally unseen by Olive. To begin with, Verena is very much like an "unliberated" woman of today. She is hip, cool, and well-dressed, but she has no tradition of any sort behind her upon which Olive can build. Further, her chief goal in life is to get married, a distinctly unfeminine trait. Complicating Olive's incessant moralizing to Verena, Basil Ransom enters as a handsome lawyer who quickly falls for Verena and she for him. Basil is the male equivalent of Verena. He has scarcely a thought in his head that does not involve winning a case or winning Verena's heart. In the battle between Olive and Basil for the heart and soul of Verena, there is no contest. By the end of the novel, Basil literally sweeps and swoops Verena off her feet and out of town, leaving a disconsolate Olive to ponder her doleful future.
James slowly builds THE BOSTONIANS up to a crescendo of irony. When one considers how much time Olive has spent with Verena inculcating her with feminist thought, one would think that at least part of Olive's exuberance would have rubbed off. The very last page shows James at his ironic best. Basil is a typical macho man who expects his wife to be in the kitchen or the bedroom, without many other stops in between. When he sweeps Verena off her feet, she is at first glad that she chose Basil over Olive, but then "she was in tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to shed." The future for Verena contrapuntally indicates James' own ideas about the lasting power and effect of feminism upon impressionable female minds.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Insightful read.
Review: This book is about a couple of women who help shine a light on women's rights movement in the 19th century. It takes place in New England. Henry James is an excellent writer. They way he digs into the minds of his characters really alows you to see them like as if you were their god. Read the book prior to watching the movie; it seemes to me that the movie comes off as a little obsessive; references to Ms. Chancellor come off homosexual and attached to Verena Tarrant which isn't true. The ending to the book and how Verena feels about the decision she has made will also suprise you because it will give you a deeper insight about the meaning for Verenas decision and her personal reflections whereas in the movie you really can't tell what she's thinking. Prior to reading the book, when I watched the movie, my feeling was that Henry James may have been synical about women and their sex but he isn't. Henry James empowers women allowing the world to see that even in the 19th century, when people thought that women were of very little use outside of the kitchen, that they are actually intellectual, brilliant and very insightful, as you may observe in his other works. He doesn't make his female characters look or act MAD but rather sincere.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Glad I stumbled on to this one
Review: I picked this one up out of the bin because it sounded somewhat familiar. I would have never picked out a story that revolved around the women's' rights movement during the 19th century unless it was nonfiction.
This book is a treat through and through. The characters are deep, the language interesting and the prose witty. It has a very simple plot, but the journey is great. This was my first Henry James book, but after reading this one, will not hesitate to read another. James takes pride in his craftsmanship and we the readers benefit. Do yourself a favor and take a step back in time and read this one.