This subtle, beautifully constructed study of an attractive, intelligent, spirited young woman's transition from insouciance to enlightenment is a classic. Passion, intrigue, betrayal - it sounds like a potboiler, but James's observations of Victorian manners, understanding of human nature and exquisite prose elevate it to another league
Guardian

This subtle, beautifully constructed study of an attractive, intelligent, spirited young woman's transition from insouciance to enlightenment is a classic. Passion, intrigue, betrayal - it sounds like a potboiler, but James's observations of Victorian manners, understanding of human nature and exquisite prose elevate it to another league
Guardian

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world
Rebecca West,

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world
Rebecca West,

Subtle and sophisticated and concerned with psychological nuance and social acceptability
Joanna Trollope,

Subtle and sophisticated and concerned with psychological nuance and social acceptability
Joanna Trollope,

James is the master of making what is not said the most important thing on the page
Kate Atkinson,

James is the master of making what is not said the most important thing on the page
Kate Atkinson,

I read Portrait of a Lady by Henry James maybe once a year. I just love the story. I love the pace of it
Colm Toibin,

I read Portrait of a Lady by Henry James maybe once a year. I just love the story. I love the pace of it
Colm Toibin,

James’s formidable powers of observation, his stance as a kind of bachelor recorder of human doings in which he is not involved make him a first-class documentarian, joining him to that great body of storytellers who amass what formal history cannot
Hortense Calisher,

James’s formidable powers of observation, his stance as a kind of bachelor recorder of human doings in which he is not involved make him a first-class documentarian, joining him to that great body of storytellers who amass what formal history cannot
Hortense Calisher,

He was a pioneer of the psychological novel
Guardian

He was a pioneer of the psychological novel
Guardian

James created admirable women characters (often a weak point in a male novelist) and his book explores the old-fashioned but nevertheless sound idea that there are fine souls and absolutely appalling people in a world which is not composed of similar self-seeking anti-heroes and anti-heroines. Evil is always present in James and it appears in this book charming, insidious and poisonous to all the good things in the world. A chilling but compelling book to read in the sun
John Mortimer,

James created admirable women characters (often a weak point in a male novelist) and his book explores the old-fashioned but nevertheless sound idea that there are fine souls and absolutely appalling people in a world which is not composed of similar self-seeking anti-heroes and anti-heroines. Evil is always present in James and it appears in this book charming, insidious and poisonous to all the good things in the world. A chilling but compelling book to read in the sun
John Mortimer,

Fear stalks James's pages like grotesquerie in Dickens, like testosterone in Hemingway, like magic in Angela Carter
Independent on Sunday

Fear stalks James's pages like grotesquerie in Dickens, like testosterone in Hemingway, like magic in Angela Carter
Independent on Sunday