The Ambassadors: Everyman's Library CLASSICS

Henry James was born on 15th April 1843 in Washington Place, New York to a wealthy and intellectual family and as a youth travelled between Europe and America. His first novel, Watch and Ward, was published in 1871 after first appearing serially in Atlantic Monthly. After a brief period in Paris, James moved first to London and then later to Rye in Sussex. He became a British citizen in 1915 to declare his loyalty to his adopted country as well as to protest against America's refusal to enter the war on behalf of Britain. Henry James was a prolific writer and critic and from around 1875 until his death he maintained a strenuous schedule of publications in a variety of genres: novels, short story collections, literary criticism, travel writing, biography and autobiography. He died in 1916.

This complex tale of self-discovery -- considered by the author to be his best work -- traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

General editors' preface; General chronology of James' life and writings; Introduction; Textual introduction; Chronology of composition and production; Bibliography; The Ambassadors; Glossary of foreign words and phrases; Notes; Textual variants; List of emendations; Appendices.

'… the Cambridge Edition reproduces James's fiction as it originally appeared to his contemporary book-buying public, collectively charting a half century of artistic development, stylistic invention, and cultural history. It gives readers options, and in the case of The Ambassadors the choice of the Cambridge Edition is a deeply satisfying one. … One of the Cambridge Edition's many strengths is the attention the editors pay to textual history and the historical development of James's fiction within biographical, literary, and cultural contexts … many will agree that the Cambridge Edition is 'quite the best, 'all round' edition …' Sarah Wadsworth, Review of English Studies
'[One of] two handsome volumes in their Cambridge maroon cloth covers with gilt stamping on the binding and James's familiar signature on the covers are crucial additions to the resources scholars will use for generations to study the greatest novelist of the modern period.' John Carlos Rowe, The Henry James Review
'Given that the 'textual condition' of The Ambassadors (to use McGann's phrase) is an excursion into chaos (to use James's phrase), Nicola Bradbury should be crowned in laurels for guiding us with such precision through its various incarnations. The Cambridge edition gives us the evolution of The Ambassadors from 'dropped seed', as James called it, to full-flowering.' Frances Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement