{"product_id":"portrait-of-a-novel-henry-james-and-the-making-of-an-american-masterpiece-9780871406705","title":"Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece","description":"\u003cp\u003eHenry James (1843 1916) has had many biographers, but Michael Gorra has taken an original approach to this great American progenitor of the modern novel, combining elements of biography, criticism, and travelogue in re-creating the dramatic backstory of James's masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady (1881). Gorra, an eminent literary critic, shows how this novel the scandalous story of the expatriate American heiress Isabel Archer came to be written in the first place. Traveling to Florence, Rome, Paris, and England, Gorra sheds new light on James's family, the European literary circles George Eliot, Flaubert, Turgenev in which James made his name, and the psychological forces that enabled him to create this most memorable of female protagonists. Appealing to readers of Menand's The Metaphysical Club and McCullough's The Greater Journey, Portrait of a Novel provides a brilliant account of the greatest American novel of expatriate life ever written. It becomes a piercing detective story on its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGorra, Michael:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - The author of \u003cem\u003ePortrait of Novel\u003c\/em\u003e, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, \u003cstrong\u003eMichael Gorra\u003c\/strong\u003e is the Mary Augusta Jordan Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and the editor of the Norton Critical Editions of \u003cem\u003eAs I Lay Dying\u003c\/em\u003e and The \u003cem\u003eSound and the Fury\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50461466755346,"sku":"9780871406705","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7dcb151e-9121-473c-887d-6cf10eb5fb92.jpg?v=1730068048","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/portrait-of-a-novel-henry-james-and-the-making-of-an-american-masterpiece-9780871406705","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}