Henry James Washington Square

The plot of Washington Square has the simplicity of old-fashioned melodrama: a plain-looking, good-hearted young woman, the only child of a rich widower, is pursued by a charming but unscrupulous man who seeks the wealth she will presumably inherit. On this premise, Henry James constructed one of his most memorable novels, a story in which love is answered with betrayal and loyalty leads inexorably to despair."
——from the Introduction by Peter Conn 

In WASHINGTON SQUARE(1880),Henry James reminisces about the New York he had known thiry years before as he tells the story of Caterine sloper and her fortune-seeking suitor morris townsend.This perceptively drawn human dramsa is james' most accessible work and an enduring literary triumph.
Washington Square press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader.This edition of WASHINGTON SQUARE has been prepared by Peter Conn,Andrea Mitchell Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.It includes his introduction,Notes,selection aof critical excerpts,and suggestions for further reading as well as a unique visual essay of period illustrations and photographs.

Henry James was born in 1843 at 21 Washington Place in new York City.The son of henry james Sr. a prominent intellectual,James was educatied by tutors abroad.after a brief stint at Harvard Law School when he was nineteen,James Concentrated on literatu

INTRODUCTION BY PETER CONN
WASHINGTON SQUARE
NOTES
CRITICAL EXCERPTS
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING