The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

Henry James

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I rem...

Henry James

IN TWO PARTS The text is that of the first American appearance in book form, 1879.

Henry James

PREFACE "_The Portrait of a Lady_" was, like "_Roderick Hudson_," begun in Florence, during three months spent there in the spring of 1879.

Henry James

CHAPTER I What determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intention--spoken as they l...

Jane Austen

Chapter 1 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Letter 1 St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-- TO Mrs. Saville, England You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such ...

Herman Melville

Original Transcriber's Notes: This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg's archives.

Charles Dickens

Book the First--Recalled to Life I. The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was...