![]() Cover of The American | |
Author | Henry James |
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Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | James R. Osgood and Company, Boston |
Publication date | 5 May 1877 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Serial, Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 435 pp |
Text | The American at Wikisource |
The American is a novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1876–77 and then as a book in 1877.
The novel is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th-century American business. He encounters both the beauty and the ugliness of Europe, and learns not to take either for granted. The core of the novel concerns Newman's courtship of a young widow from an aristocratic Parisian family.