Transplanted to Europe from her native America, Isabel Archer has candor, beauty, intelligence, an independent spirit and a marked enthusiasm for life. An unexpected inheritance apparently gives her freedom, but despite all her natural advantages she makes one disastrous error of judgement and the result is genuinely tragic. Her tale, told with James` inimitable poise, is of the widest relevance.
`The phase when his (Henry James`) genius functioned with the freest and vitality is represented by The Portrait of a Lady`. (F.R.Leavis)