The Ambassadors, published in 1903, is considered by theauthor himself to be his most 'perfect' work of art. In this novel, with much humour and delicacy of perception, the author depicts the reaction of different American types to the European environment. Lambert Strether, a middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is sent to Paris by Mrs. Newsome, a wealthy widow, to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure and to persuade him to return to Massachusetts and his responsibilities as head of the family business. Strether's success as an ambassador will ensure his marriage to Mrs. Newsome. In Paris he finds Chad miraculously transformed by the influence of a charming French woman, Madame de Vionnet. As the Parisian spring advances, he himself succumbs to the congenial atmosphere of Paris and the mysterious charm of Madame de Vionnet. Mrs. Newsome sends further ambassadors her daughter Sarah and Sarah's husband and sister-in-law to appeal to Chad.
Henry James, (15th April, 1843, New York, U.S.A. and mdash;28th February, 1916, London, U.K.), was an American-British essayist, critic, author of the realism movement and a great figure in the transatlantic culture. His fundamental theme of writings was the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash with the corruption and wisdom of the Old, as illustrated in his most famous works such as Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Turn of the Screw (1898) and The Ambassadors (1903).Henry James was born into a wealthy and educated family in New York and named for his father, a prominent social theorist and lecturer. His father was a well-known clergyman and a rich intellectual having connections with some of the most influential and educated people of the time. Education was of utmost importance to Henry and rsquo;s family. Henry and rsquo;s siblings like Henry were also accomplished individuals in their own rights in life. His brother William James was a philosopher while his sister Alice James, a diarist.James and rsquo; career was one of the longest and most productive and most influential, in American letters. A master of prose fiction from the first, he practiced it as a fertile innovator, enlarged the form and placed upon it the stamp of a highly individual method and style. During the fifty years of his literary career, which spanned the period from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of World War I, James produced 20 novels, 112 tales, 12 plays, several volumes of travel books, autobiography, books of criticism, letters and literary notebooks. His first story appeared anonymously in the New York Continental Monthly and his first book reviews in the North American Review. When William Dean Howells became editor of The Atlantic Monthly, James found in him a friend and mentor who published him regularly. James and Howells inaugurated the era of American and lsquo;realism and rsquo;.James and rsquo; literary career can be divided into three periods and mdash;the early period, the middle years and the and ldquo;later manner and rdquo; or, more popularly, the major phase. Works of early period include Roderick Hudson, The American and The Portrait of a Lady. Works of middle period include The Princess Casamassima, The Bostonians, The Spoils of Poynton, The Turn of the Screw and The Awkward Age. And the works of final phase include The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.
