The Portrait of a Lady

Beginning in 1905, Henry James revised The Portrait of a Lady significantly for publication in a new edition. His motives were both financial and artistic. The project failed in terms of expected financial benefit. However, James revised the novel to reflect his late style and wrote extensive prefaces that became important to the theory of the novel. The later New York edition has often been considered the superior version because it reflects the author’s final decisions on narrative choices. However, critics have also complained about the fact that the changes made Isabel’s character more subtle and removed some explicit descriptions of character motivation.

Changes to the New York edition made much of the dialogue more oblique and suggestive rather than explicit, which is characteristic of James’s later style and move toward Modernism. For example, James revised a passage in which Lord Warburton and Ralph discuss the possibility of Isabel marrying Gilbert. In the first edition, the passage reads:

‘Does she like him?’

‘Yes, I think she does.’

‘Is he a good fellow?’

Ralph hesitated a moment. ‘No, he’s not,’ he said, at last. ‘why then does she like him?’ pursued Lord Warburton with noble naieveté.