The Portrait of a Lady

Beginning in 1905, Henry James revised The Portrait of a Lady significantly for publication in a new edition. His motives were both financial and artistic. The project failed in terms of expected financial benefit. However, James revised the novel to reflect his late style and wrote extensive prefaces that became important to the theory of the novel. The later New York edition has often been considered the superior version because it reflects the author’s final decisions on narrative choices. However, critics have also complained about the fact that the changes made Isabel’s character more subtle and removed some explicit descriptions of character motivation.

Changes to the New York edition made much of the dialogue more oblique and suggestive rather than explicit, which is characteristic of James’s later style and move toward Modernism. For example, James revised a passage in which Lord Warburton and Ralph discuss the possibility of Isabel marrying Gilbert. In the first edition, the passage reads:

‘Does she like him?’

‘Yes, I think she does.’

‘Is he a good fellow?’

Ralph hesitated a moment. ‘No, he’s not,’ he said, at last. ‘why then does she like him?’ pursued Lord Warburton with noble naieveté.

‘Because she’s a woman’ (592, fn. 298).

In this version of the passage, both Lord Warburton and Ralph are direct: The former in asking how Isabel feels about Gilbert and the latter in denouncing Gilbert’s character. The passage also includes facetious commentary on the role of Isabel’s gender on her misinformed decision to trust Gilbert. In the New York edition, James revised the passage as follows:

Lord Warburton […] spoke again. ‘Is he awfully clever?’

‘Awfully,’ said Ralph.

His companion thought. ‘And what else?’

‘What more do you want?’ Ralph groaned.

‘Do you mean what more does she?’ (298).

The revised version of the passage alludes to Gilbert’s bad character rather than addressing it directly. James implies his badness through the repetition of the adverb “awfully” rather than having Ralph say directly that Gilbert is not a good fellow. The revised passage also suggests a more complicated motivation for Isabel by questioning what she wants, rather than suggesting that she likes Gilbert merely because she is a woman.