The Portrait of a Lady

The spirited young American Isabel Archer, come into a fortune, prizes her freedom above all and chooses, of all her suitors, the one who will cage her, the cold aesthete Gilbert Osmond. James follows her across a real transatlantic world: the Touchetts' English house on the Thames, London, the Florence where Osmond weaves his trap, and the Rome where the marriage closes around her like a beautiful prison.

Ralph

Gardencourt

The heiress

At the beautiful old English house of Gardencourt, the American Isabel Archer charms the dying banker Touchett and his invalid son Ralph, who quietly persuades his father to leave her a fortune so she may be free. James opens on Isabel's bright promise and independence, and on Ralph's selfless, doomed love, the gift of money that will, with terrible irony, deliver her to her ruin.

The opening chapters

inspired by Gardencourt, the Touchetts' country house on the Thames where Isabel arrives from America, is a fictional estate drawn from the great riverside houses of England; sited west of London.

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