The American Book Summary

The American is a romantic novel. Henry James' novel The American was serialized in The Atlantic Monthly in 1876, then published as a book a year later, and staged as a four-act play in 1891. The American is the narrative of Christopher Newman, a self-made American millionaire whose guilelessness and forthrightness contrast with arrogance and cunning of the Bellegardes, a family of French aristocracy whose daughter he unsuccessfully attempts to marry. The story is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th-century American business. He encounters both the beauty and ugliness of Europe. Newman arrives to Paris in 1868 to immerse himself in European culture and to find a wife. He is courting Claire de Cintré, an aristocratic young widow, but her older brother and mother consider him socially unsuitable. On his deathbed, Valentin, Claire's younger brother, informs Newman how he might blackmail the family into allowing marriage with Claire, who has subsequently joined a nun. Newman decides not to follow through on his threat of blackmail, which had failed to alter the Bellegardes' unwavering commitment to social class and family tradition.

Edited at 2022-08-23 08:07:13