Fiction · 1877
The American
Christopher Newman, a self-made American businessman visiting Paris, falls in love with Claire de Cintré, a young widow from an old aristocratic French family, and wins her consent to marry him — until her family, appalled at his low birth despite his fortune, breaks the engagement, and Newman is left holding evidence of a family scandal he could use for revenge but chooses not to.
James published The American in 1877, serialized first in the Atlantic Monthly; its clash between American directness and European social hierarchy became one of his recurring subjects.
Bibliomancer restores the 1877 text exactly as James wrote it.
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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About the author
1843–1916 · Victorian
Henry James (1843–1916) was born in New York City, the son of a theologian and brother of the philosopher William James, and educated in Europe and America. He settled in England in 1876 and became a British subject in 1915. Among his novels are Roderick Hudson, The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians, What Maisie Knew, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl; among his tales, Daisy Miller, The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw (1898).
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