'There was nothing weak about Miss Olive, she was a fighting woman,
and she would fight him to the death'
Basil Ransom, an attractive young Mississippi lawyer, is on a visit to
his cousin Olive, a wealthy feminist, in Boston when he accompanies her
to a meeting on the subject of women's emancipation. One of the speakers
is Verena Tarrant, and although he disapproves of all she claims to
stand for, Basil is immediately captivated by her and sets about
'reforming' her with his traditional views. But Olive has already made
Verena her protégée, and soon a battle is under way for exclusive
possession of her heart and mind. The Bostonians is one of James's
most provocative and astute portrayals of a world caught between old
values and the lure of progress.
Richard Lansdown's introduction discusses The Bostonians as James's
most successful political work and his funniest novel. This edition
contains extracts from Tocqueville and from James's 'The American
Scene', which illuminate the novel's social context. There are also
notes and a bibliography.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of
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titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works
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notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as
up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
