This Library of America volume brings together one of Henry James's
most unusual experiments and one of his most beloved masterpieces
Writing to his friend William Dean Howells, Henry James characterized
his experimental novel, The Sacred Fount, as the only one of his
novels to be told in the first person, as "a fine flight into the high
fantastic." While traveling to the country house of Newmarch for a
weekend party, the nameless narrator becomes obsessed with the idea that
a person may become younger or cleverer by tapping the "sacred fount" of
another person. Convinced that Grace Brissenden has become younger by
drawing upon her husband, Guy, the narrator seeks to discover the source
of the newfound wit of Gilbert Long, previously "a fine piece of human
furniture." His perplexing and ambiguous quest, and the varying
reactions it provokes from the other guests, calls into question the
imaginative inquiry central to James's art of the novel.
James described the essential idea of The Wings of the Dove as "a
young person conscious of a great capacity for life, but early stricken
and doomed, condemned to die under short respite, while also enamoured
of the world." The heroine, a wealthy young American heiress, Milly
Theale (inspired by James's beloved cousin Minny Temple), is slowly
drawn into a trap set for her by the English adventuress Kate Croy and
her lover, the journalist Morton Densher. The unexpected outcome of
their mercenary scheme provides the resolution to a tragic story of love
and betrayal, innocence and experience that has long been acknowledged
as one of James's supreme achievements as a novelist. This volume prints
the New York Edition text of The Wings of the Dove, and includes the
illuminating preface James wrote for that edition.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
