Adina

by Henry James

Adina is a novel written by the renowned American author, Henry James. The story is set in Italy and revolves around a young American woman named Adina, who is visiting the country with her mother. Adina is a beautiful and charming woman, and she quickly captures the attention of the local aristocracy.Adina is pursued by several suitors, including the wealthy and powerful Prince Casamassima. However, Adina is not interested in any of them and instead falls in love with an impoverished Italian painter named Pietro. Despite the disapproval of her mother and the aristocracy, Adina and Pietro continue their relationship.As the story progresses, Adina becomes increasingly disillusioned with the shallow and materialistic society around her. She begins to question her own values and desires, and ultimately must choose between her love for Pietro and the expectations of her family and society.Adina is a complex and nuanced exploration of love, class, and cultural identity. James' prose is rich and evocative, painting a vivid picture of the Italian landscape and society. The novel is a timeless classic, and a must-read for anyone interested in the works of Henry James or in the genre of literary fiction.The days passed by and Angelo's revenge still hung fire. Scrope never met his fate at a short turning of one of the dusky Roman streets; he came in punctually every evening at eleven o'clock. I wondered whether our brooding friend had already spent the sinister force of a nature formed to be lazily contented. I hoped so, but I was wrong. We had gone to walk one afternoon, ----the ladies, Scrope and I, ----in the charming Villa Borghese, and, to escape from the rattle of the fashionable world and it's distraction, we had wandered away to an unfrequented corner where the old mouldering wall and the slim black cypresses and the untrodden grass made, beneath the splendid Roman sky, the most harmonious of pictures.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original wor

Genres: Fiction

42 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1874

About the author

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."