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The Ambassadors

henry james

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The Ambassadors is a novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review (NAR).

Story:
Concerned that her son Chad may have become involved with a woman of dubious reputation, the formidable Mrs. Newsome sends her 'ambassador' Strether from Massachusetts to Paris to extricate him. Strether's mission, however, is gradually undermined as he falls under the spell of the city and finds Chad refined rather than corrupted by its influence and that of his charming companion, the comtesse de Vionnet. As the summer wears on, Mrs. Newsome comes to the conclusion that she must send another envoy to Paris to confront the errant Chad, and a Strether whose view of the world has changed profoundly.
The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view.

Extract:
After the opera, Strether tells Chad why he has come to Paris. However, as he speaks, Strether finds himself less certain of his stance. Chad, once callow and juvenile, now seems confident and restrained. His new personality impresses Strether, who wonders what—or who—has caused Chad’s transformation. Chad asks Strether to stay and meet his close friends, a mother and a daughter, who are arriving in a few days time. Strether, wondering if one of these women has been the impetus for Chad’s improvement, and assuming the daughter to be Chad’s lover, agrees to stay. Meanwhile, Bilham convinces Strether that Chad has a “virtuous attachment”—and that Chad’s relationship with the mysterious woman is innocent. Strether eventually meets the women, Madame de Vionnet and her daughter, Jeanne, at a high society party, but he does not see them long enough to cement an impression. After the brief introduction to Madame de Vionnet, Strether finds himself alone with little Bilham. Strether takes the opportunity to offer Bilham some sage advice: live all you can before it is too late. This advice exposes Strether’s own change since coming to Europe. In Paris, he feels renewed, young again, doubly alive. Over...

398 pages, Paperback

First published September 24,1903
Places
france, paris, 

This edition

Format
398 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 2006 by Adamant Media Corporation
ISBN
9780543903709
ASIN
0543903702
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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henry james

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Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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100 reviews All reviews
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Mycelis_Tsukiyo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I can’t. Ok? I just can’t do this. I can’t spend hours reading through paragraphs that span pages filled with trivial contemplations. These paragraphs are comprised of sentences that second guess themselves before they end. Some may cheer this book as a literary accomplishment, but as a consumer of great stories, I can honestly say that this story is so overburdened by words that the story is hardly there.
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Yareisa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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If there could be a book I would like to have the opportunity to read again as if for the first time, this would be that book. It is charming, seductive, funny and just generally delightful. Like Lambert Strether facing Europe, I found myself utterly taken in by this most enjoyable book.

James is completely at ease and at home with this material and it lifts up and floats around the reader as easily as a silken scarf that has been spread out and lifted up on a buoying breeze. James holds the silk in hand, so it never gets away, and yet it lifts up, filled with light, air and life. And the work is as finely realized, as delicately nuanced as any fine fabric.

It is a book to be savored like the golden light of an afternoon in early autumn. Just the best!
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fazacc203
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Henry James might be the classic author I'm the most conflicted about. I loved The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw. I liked Washington Square and The Awkward Age quite enough. On the other hand I really couldn't get into Daisy Miller, The Golden Bowl, The Wings of the Dove and now The Ambassadors.

Reading Henry James is an emotional rollercoaster: first you think he's a great author then you wonder why he kept writing so much, a story is keeping you on edge and the next one is making you drift off, a character is deeply touching you and you can't be bothered to remember the names of the ones of the next novel you read.

A funny thing is that many readers feel conflicted that way about Henry James, but not about the same books. I definitely recommend to read some of this author's books if you haven't yet, but I absolutely cannot predict which one will be the right one for you.
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Bethanyw_31
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Originally published on my blog here in July 2000.

One of James' late novels, The Ambassadors is in some ways an experiment in minimalism. The plot is rudimentary (a rich woman sends emissaries from Wollett, USA to Paris to disentangle her son from an unsuitable relationship), background virtually non-existent (most chapters are principally dialogue), and the characters ciphers. It is only the interactions between the characters which are interesting - and even these tell us virtually nothing about them; hence the importance assigned to their meetings and conversations. It is an exercise in how little is needed to sustain a reader through nearly five hundred pages.

The temptation is to sit back and admire the technical skill with which this is done, on the small scale (the large scale structure is both rigid and simple - almost exactly half way through, the son is willing to return home, yet the ambassador has come to think it will be better for him to remain). I didn't find the novel very involving (though this might be because I was coming down with a fever while reading its second half).
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tonaruto044
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Foolish ever to choose a single work of art as "the greatest," but if I had to choose a single novel this would be it. The reader needs patience to work through James' pages-long sentences, but by the end of the book, the complexities and detail of James' descriptions of the inner workings of his characters' minds creates an environment in which the fluttering of an eyelash feels like an earthquake.
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YungMozambique
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Deceptively complex. This book will coax your preconceived notions from you before you realize it, before dining on them, and in always the most unexpected way.

I found myself wanting to apply certain biographic data of Henry James to the analysis of the story; but the Story resisted them. Perhaps a sign of a book's, as well as an author's, greatness is the ability to do this, to exist in spite of interpretation.
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orerreug
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Yeah, so reading this novel is basically like driving through Indiana. That's the analogy I'm going to use. It's like driving through Indiana. You know, it's long, it's generally boring. You start drifting off. Instead of focusing on the road, you're mind begins to wander. You tell yourself to stay focused, but that doesn't work, because now you're just thinking about staying focused, you're still not paying attention to the road. But then once you get through it, once you're out of Indiana, you're happy, you're glad you made the trip, because now you're in Illinois, you're now approaching Chicago, and Chicago is really a pretty fricking amazing place. So yeah, that's what reading this novel is like.
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AoiMemori
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I love Henry James, but he is an acquired taste. I have read the Ambassadors three times, and parts of it many times. While working in DC - 2005 - I got two copies: One for home and one for my office - a few years ago I added a third copy to my office at home.. I followed James advice and read it five pages a day being careful "not to break the thread." I did break the thread twice - so I read it in three extended chunks. (I read five pages a day at the State Department -- if anyone saw me I was reading a book about Ambassadors, so it seemed proper!) When even I start the book I just cannot stop. I found every re-reading very rewarding. I can see clearly now how James as really pared the novel to the absolute minimum - one hears just enough of the conversations between Strether and Chad to realize that they must see each other more often than the author lets on. How amazing that the most vivid characters are the ones seen least: Mrs. Newsome in particular, but even Chad and Waymarsh. James captures the appear of reading a book as rich as the Ambassadors when he has Strether describe Madame de Vionnet's home, or rather, its effect on Strether: "He liked the place she lived in, the picture that each time squared itself, large and high and clear, around here: every occassion of seeing it was a pleasure of a different shade." (Book 12, Chapter I.) Indeed, the pleasure in reading the Ambassadors squares itself each time.
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