The American.

JAMES, Henry.

Item Number: 119732

Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Riverside Press, 1895.

Early printing of this masterly early work by James. Octavo, original cloth. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Henry James February 11th 1895.” In very good condition with light rubbing and wear. Housed in a custom morocco clamshell box.

Christopher Newman, a 'self-made' American millionaire in France, falls in love with the beautiful aristocratic Claire de Bellegarde. Her family, however, taken aback by his brash American manner, rejects his proposal of marriage. When Newman discovers a guilty secret in the Bellegardes' past, he confronts a moral dilemma: Should he expose them and thus gain his revenge? James's masterly early work is at once a social comedy, a melodramatic romance and a realistic novel of manners.