Mrs. Osmond [Paperback]

InMrs. Osmond, John Banville continues the story of Isabel Archer, the young protagonist of Henry James’s belovedThe Portrait of a Lady. Eager but naïve, in James’s novel Isabel comes into a large, unforeseen inheritance and marries the charming, penniless, and—as Isabel finds out too late—cruel and deceitful Gilbert Osmond. Here Banville imagines Isabel’s second chapter telling the story of a woman reawakened by grief and the knowledge that she has been grievously wronged, and determined to resume her quest for freedom and independence. A masterly novel of betrayal, corruption, and moral ambiguity,Mrs. Osmondwould have thrilled James himself.“Banville’s ability to channel James’s style and prose rhythms is astonishing. I can’t imagine anyone who could have done it better.” —Jeffrey Eugenides,The New York Times BookReview

“As impressive an act of stylistic channeling as anything I’ve read. . . . Like its source text,Mrs. Osmondinvestigates what happens when liberty runs up against those forces that would constrain it: personal history, secret plots, money, evil itself.” —Anthony Domestico,The Boston Globe

“A novel that is at once an epochal act of imitation, salutation and imagination.” —NPR
 
“A brilliant and beguiling novel on its own, and a reminder to us that not only does great literature endure, it engenders.” —MinneapolisStar Tribune
 
“Something like a jazz improvisation on a classic song, or a new orchestration of earlier tunes and disharmonies.” —London Review of Books
 
“Banville is one of the best novelists in English. . . .Mrs Osmondis both a remarkable novel in its own right and a superb pastiche.” —Edmund White,The Guardian
 
“[A] modern classic . . . a stlÓ+