A young American woman inherits a fortune she did not ask for and is thereby made free to choose — which is the trap. James thought this his most perfect design: an heiress, three suitors, an expatriate circle in Florence and Rome, and a marriage entered into for the noblest reason and the worst judgment. He revised it heavily in old age, and readers still argue about which version to read. Fifty-eight plates of painting from 1795 to 1911, among them Homer and Cassatt, gather the parlors, dinner tables and quiet interiors of the world Isabel Archer moves through.
