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Zusatztext “As devastating in its wit as it is sharp in its social critique of sexual politics. No writer in America had dared the subject before. No one has done it so well since.” — The New Republic Informationen zum Autor Henry James; Introduction by Christopher Butler Klappentext Henry James's celebrated novel about a passionate New England feminist! her reactionary Southern gentleman cousin! and a charismatic young woman whose loyalty they both wish to possess goes so directly to the heart of sexual politics that it speaks to us with a voice as fresh and vital as when the book was first published in 1886. When Basil Ransom visits his cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston! she takes him to hear a political speech about women's emancipation by a gifted speaker named Verena Tarrant. Though repelled by her principles! Basil is enchanted by the lovely Verena and becomes determined to convert her to his rigidly conservative views of a woman's place. He argues that Verena is made for private passion not a public career! and wants to marry her and take her away from those he feels are exploiting her. But Olive! a serious devotee of the cause! has made Verena her protégée and taken her into her home. What ensues is a battle for the young woman's body and soul by two antagonists with wills stronger than hers. Riveting in its narrative drama! rich and sympathetic in its ironies! The Bostonians is the work of a master psychologist at the top of his form. (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) I “Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn’t tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn’t know whether she is or not, and she wouldn’t for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor;1 she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don’t know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate.” These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book. The gentleman had not even needed to sit down to become interested: apparently he had taken up the volume from a table as soon as he came in, and, standing there, after a single glance round the apartment, had lost himself in its pages. He threw it down at the approach of Mrs. Luna, laughed, shook hands with her, and said in answer to her last remark, “You imply that you do tell fibs. Perhaps that is one.” “Oh no; there is nothing wonderful in my being glad to see you,” Mrs. Luna rejoined, “when I tell you that I have been three long weeks in this unprevaricating city.” “That has an unflattering sound for me,” said the young man. “I pretend not to prevaricate.” “Dear me, what’s the good of being a Southerner?” the lady asked. “Olive told me to tell you she hoped you will stay to dinner. And if she said it, she does really hope it. She is willing to risk that.” “Just as I am?” the visitor inquired, presenting himself with rather a work-a-day aspect. Mrs. Luna glanced at him from head to foot, and gave a little smiling sigh, as if he had been a long sum in addition. And, indeed, he was very long, Basil Ransom, and he even looked a little hard and discouraging, like a column of figures, in spite of the friendly face which he bent upon his hostess’s deputy, and which, in its thinness, had a deep dry line, a sort of premature wrinkle, on either side of the mouth. He was tall and lean, and dressed throughout in black; his shirt-collar was low and wide, and the triangle of linen, a little crumpled, exhibited by the opening of his waistcoat, was adorned by a pin containing a small red stone. In spite of this decoration the...
