Novels 1881-1886: Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians (Library of America)

Written in London and Italy between 1879 and 1885, the novels in this Library of America volume portray American women confronting crises of independence and possession. Studies in the exercise of power that marks relations between sexes, classes, and cultures, they show James’s special solicitude for the young heroines who occupy the center of his fictional world.

Washington Square (1880) examines the life of Catherine Sloper, a plain, sweet, young woman who lives imprisoned by …