Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook703 pages11 hours
The Wings of the Dove
By Henry James
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Neither Edith Wharton nor E. M. Forster admired it, but Louis Auchincloss calls The Wings of the Dove 'perhaps the greatest of Henry James's novels.' Published in 1902, the novel represented something of a comeback for James, whose only 'bestseller,' Daisy Miller, had appeared more than two decades earlier. Set amid the splendor of fashionable London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, the story concerns a pair of lovers who conspire to obtain the fortune of a doomed American heiress. But the naïve young woman becomes both their victim and their redeemer in James's meticulously designed drama of treachery and self-betrayal. 'It seems to me that I know the characters even more intimately than I know the characters in the earlier novels of his Balzac period,' said Louis Auchincloss. 'The Wings of the Dove represents the pinnacle of James's prose.' This version is the definitive New York Edition, which appeared in 1907, together with the author's Preface.
Neither Edith Wharton nor E. M. Forster admired it, but Louis Auchincloss calls The Wings of the Dove 'perhaps the greatest of Henry James's novels.' Published in 1902, the novel represented something of a comeback for James, whose only 'bestseller,' Daisy Miller, had appeared more than two decades earlier. Set amid the splendor of fashionable London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, the story concerns a pair of lovers who conspire to obtain the fortune of a doomed American heiress. But the naïve young woman becomes both their victim and their redeemer in James's meticulously designed drama of treachery and self-betrayal. 'It seems to me that I know the characters even more intimately than I know the characters in the earlier novels of his Balzac period,' said Louis Auchincloss. 'The Wings of the Dove represents the pinnacle of James's prose.' This version is the definitive New York Edition, which appeared in 1907, together with the author's Preface.
Unavailable
Author
Henry James
Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.
Read more from Henry James
The Turn of the Screw Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gothic Novel Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roderick Hudson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bostonians Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Europeans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry James: The Complete Novellas and Tales (Centaur Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Beast in the Jungle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/550 Feminist Masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Golden Bowl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Badass Prepper's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Prepare Yourself for the Worst Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGothic Classics: 60+ Books in One Volume Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Daily Henry James: A Year of Quotes from the Work of the Master Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bushcraft Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Survival Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings30 Occult & Supernatural masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Turn of the Screw and Other Short Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wings of the Dove Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Masterpieces of Occult & Supernatural Fiction Vol. 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsItalian Hours: “The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Wings of the Dove
Related ebooks
The Wings of the Dove Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wings of the Dove (Dream Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ambassadors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Awkward Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Maisie Knew Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Barbarina and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ambassadors (Dream Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Bondage and My Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Initiate: Some Impressions of a Great Soul Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ambassadors: A Dark Comedy Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucretia — Volume 01 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Barbarina Henry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ambassadors (Diversion Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Original Belle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Portrait of a Lady Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucretia — Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE TRAGIC MUSE: Victorian Romance Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings5 Notable Works by Henry James You Should Know (Dream Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tragic Muse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ambassadors (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #52] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHuman, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essential Algernon Blackwood Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGodolphin, Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Centaur Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Portrait of a Lady: Must Read Classics Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Wings of the Dove
Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars
3/5
8 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My favorite of James' journey's into a society thin on plot, but full of characters whose struggles show us so very much about them.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I had entered this dense book with what I think to be valid complaints. James expends an incredible amount of words to communicate so little, he falls into the trap of trying to shape the reader's impression of his characters (a charge brought an influence of his, George Eliot), he draws conclusions on events that a reader of average intelligence (me) could reach on his own, and ends a fair share of sentences with prepositions (something up with which I will not put!). These problems definitely irked me and made reading the first half a real slog, but from about the near end of the first half and throughout the second, the book fast picks up steam and James mines stronger ground with the moral implications of the book. The best of this book recalls the superior Portrait Of A Lady, no doubt, and that's what saves it, but I feel that the above-mentioned complaints are too grave for the book to warrant the masterpiece status it has received.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Strunk and White wrote The Elements of Style in 1918, and I think it's entirely possible that they meant the entire book as a critique of Henry James. If you must read James, opt for one of the novellas--"Turn of the Screw" or "Daisy Miller," for instance--where James proves that he was not entirely incapable of clarity and economy of style. Or better yet, just read Edith Wharton, who is just as adept at the leisure-class, drawing-room tragedy and a far better prose stylist. In my opinion, the privileging of Henry James over Edith Wharton is one of the two best arguments the feminist school has for gender bias in traditional literary criticism. (The other being the privileging of James Joyce over Virgina Woolf.) If ever there were a book that justifies the practice of just reading the Cliff's Notes, The Wings of the Dove is it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5sometimes james is barely readable and usually not listenable but i had these cassettes. i don't know what really happened in this story. i liked the reader who compared james and wharton and joyce and woolf very interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wings of the Dove by Henry James; (4*)The reader must read Henry James carefully, closely and slowly. One must also read between the lines.The Wings of the Dove is made up of characters so subtle and so intelligent that even a careful reader will be challenged to keep up. The story follows a young man and woman, Densher, and Kate, who are in love and want to be together. But her guardian disapproves as there is not a bright financial situation ahead for Kate.Kate devises a plan to improve their prospects and asks Densher only to be patient. Her intelligence and moral flexibility allow her to adjust her original plan when the possibility of an even better outcome presents itself in the person of her dear friend Milly. (ie: "the Dove") What the process will do to Milly is of little importance to Densher at the outset. However as he gets to know Milly better, Densher's conviction begins to crumble. Despite his best efforts to turn a blind eye to his own part in a terrible deception, he feels his character eroding and needs constant reassurance from Kate that it all will be worth it in the end. By the end, however, he has to come face to face with what he's done and the price he, Milly and his relationship with Kate have paid.This was not an easy read for me but I found it well worth the time and effort I put into it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5To give this book justice, which is deserves, it would require a review as long the novel - which I have no intention of doing. I'll just say that I found the characters to be unsympathetic, unrealistic in the sense that they said nothing positive or instructive about the human experience. In a way, it showed what was wrong with the society leading up to WWI where most of them died (these sorts of people, not these actual people). I did not like them to such an extent that I didn't really care what happened to them - including Milly - who is supposedly the victim, but it insipid and not worthy of the respect that they afford her. I did enjoy the ending however which left things as vague as the entire work. Perhaps that was truely James' point - that no matter how much weight all of these people try to enfuse their lives with, it is meaningless even to the point of even bothering to tie up the story with an actual ending.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nobody else could put you through the torture of 500 pages of infinitesimally-qualified, soul-destroyingly-tentative prose and — almost — get away with it. There is a terrible tragedy tucked away under all that one-step-forward-two-steps-back ambiguity, and James's technique somehow manages to communicate the nature of that tragedy very powerfully at an emotional level whilst leaving you more than a little baffled as to what he is actually telling you in terms of the conventional landmarks of plot and character. So it is definitely worth reading, but I wish it wasn't...
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Honestly, I think this is only the third best of James' three late masterpieces (after the Ambassadors and the Golden Bowl.) I found it much harder going than either of those, although the plot was much more involved and interesting. I'm not sure how to explain that- maybe the plot was the main thing dragging me through the interminable paragraphs, whereas in the other two the reflections and nuances seemed much more important. Although I got something out this (as ever, James is an education in form and psychology), I would definitely recommend the Ambassadors over Wings of the Dove.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have tried to read this book on a few occasions. Conclusion: it's not actually readable! I am a big HJ fan up until some point in his career, after which I do not comprehend his prose at all.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This being my first Henry James reading, I was initially overwhelmed by the style and the concentration necessary to get the gist of each sentence. The insights into the workings of the human mind and emotion along with the descriptions of them made the effort worthwhile. The depth of the character portrayals made them each of them likable despite their faults although I found Densher's submission to love more admirable than Kate's strength. Basically Kate's strength was used to manipulate others to serve her greed. Millie was seemingly too good but appeared to be meant as a pawn to display the characters of Densher and Kate. The book has left me contemplating the characters and the plot long after finishing it -- the sign of a good book
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/51052 The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James (read 3 May 1970) Since I recently read another volume of Leon Edel's biography of Henry James, I thought I should read something more of his so I read this. I do not know what to make of it. Long, but slowly, with considerable dramatic power at times, yet what can one sayof some of it. Its two chief characters--Martin Densher and Kate Croy--all out of character, it seems to me, conspire to have Martin marry the dying heroine, Milly Theale, for her money. But Lord Mark--Kate's disappointed suitor--is to be reckoned with. [I won't set out more as such would be a spoiler.] I cannot pretend I enjoyed the book as much as other James novels I have read, e.g., The American, or The Ambassadors. It is too, too, really. Besides, I did not like Kate--so much, supposedly, but who in Venice becomes a scheming tramp. Well, I am not sure all the time I spent wading through this difficult book was well-spent. I doubt now I shall re-read The Portrait of a Lady, which I read 8 April 1952 with no appreciation at all.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It appears as though his earlier works were better written. By the time I got to "The Wings of the Dove" (1902) I had grown tired of him. By the end of his career, there wasn't a simple action or thought that he couldn't convey in an unending stream of words. His mantra seemed to be, "I could be succinct, but why? I enjoy writing. I couldn't give a damn whether I burden the reader with my verbal diarrhea." A highly overrated writer, maybe because he was an ex-patriot.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Henry James is a god awful, over-rated writer. Why use one word when fifty meandering ones will do? Or rather not do. It takes so long to get to the point of this bit of moral social tedium that you forget where it was supposed to be going. Young broke couple engineer a romance with dying heiress and emotional misery ensues, mostly for the reader. Skip the book and watch the movie instead.