The Bostonians - Henry James

'I asked myself what was the most salient and peculiar point in our social life. The answer was: the situation of women, the decline of the sentiment of sex, the agitation on their behalf.'

Such was Henry James's theme, brilliantly realized, in The Bostonians. The story of Basil Ransome, a Mississippi lawyer, Olive Chancellor, a radical feminist, and their struggle for exclusive possession of the beautiful Verena Tarrant has attracted virtually as much controversy as it has readers.

Is it simply a Victorian novel of love and marriage? If it is a novel of ideas, does it embody the triumph of chauvinism, or mourn the tragic collapse of avant-garde feminism? Certainly, in the glitter and moral illumination of its comedy, The Bostonians, ranks with James's greatest novels in its portrayal of what it means to be fully human, for both men and women.