The Ambassadors

"One of the great masterpieces of James's late period--and the author's own favorite among his works. EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY. First published in 1903, The Ambassadors follows the middle-aged Lambert Strether, dispatched from Massachusetts to Paris by his wealthy fiancee to "rescue" her son Chad from the corrupting influences of Europe and its wicked women. Once Strether arrives in Paris, however, Chad introduces him to a world that he finds refined and sophisticated, rather than debauched and base. He is especially enchanted by Chad's female companions, Madame de Vionnet and her daughter, Jeanne, and begins to wonder if, all his life, he has missed out on what the wider world has to offer. As his fiancee, waiting in Massachusetts, grows impatient, she sends more ambassadors to retrieve her wayward men. A darkly comic, masterfully written story of liberation, self-discovery, and the meaning of living well"--