The American

During a trip to Europe, a wealthy American businessman proposes marriage to the beautiful aristocrat Claire de Cintr, but he comes up against the machinations of her impoverished but proud family.

In this classic collision of the New World with Old Europe, James weaves a fable of thwarted desire that shifts between comedy, tragedy, romance, and melodrama.

The most comprehensive paperback edition available

The editor presents the latest scholarship on James in an edition that includes an introduction, notes, selected criticism, a text summary and a chronology of James’s life and times