Download or read book The Portrait of a Lady written by Henry James and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1998 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Isabel Archer, a young American woman with looks, wit, and imagination, arrives in Europe, she sees the world as 'a place of brightness, of free expression, of irresistible action'. She turns aside from suitors who offer her their wealth and devotion to follow her own path. But that way leads to disillusionment and a future as constricted as 'a dark narrow alley with a dead wall at the end'. In a conclusion that is one of the most moving in modern fiction, Isabel makes her final choice.