This complex tale of self-discovery — considered by the author to be his best work — traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

The second Norton Critical Edition of The Ambassadors, revised and expanded, again includes the author's preface as well as the most significant variants of the three editions of the novel published in James's lifetime. The importance of these variants and the conditions under which the novel was written and revised--conditions leading to the continuing controversy over the order of the chapters--are discussed in the editor's updated essay on editions and revisions of The Ambassadors.A map of Strether's Paris and a virtually unknown photograph of James,which originally appeared with the serial of The Ambassadors, have been added to this Second Edition, and the original frontispieces to the New York Edition of the novel are reproduced in their proper sequence for the first time. "The Author on the Novel" section contains James's letters on the inspiration for The Ambassadors as well as the long, remarkable preliminary statement that James drew up before writing the novel. The selection of James's letters on The Ambassadors has also been expanded for the Second Edition. With five new essays, the "Criticism" section now represents more than seventy years of work devoted to The Ambassadors, ranging from general evaluations of the novel as a whole, to discussions of a symbol or the explication of a paragraph, to recent essays that consider the novel theoretically. An expanded bibliography includes a list of additional critical studies of the novel.

Foreword

Henry James (North American Review, April 1903)

Map of Strether's Paris

The Text of The Ambassadors

 Preface

 Frontispiece: The Luxembourg Gardens

 The Ambassadors, Volume One

 Frontispiece: By Notre Dame

 The Ambassadors, Volume Two

 Textual Notes

 S. P. Rosenbaum·Editions and Revisions

The Author on the Novel

 Notebook Entries

 "Project of Novel by Henry James"

 Comments from James's Letters

To William Dean Howells (Aug. 9, 1900)

To William Dean Howetls (Aug. 10, 1901)

To H. G. Wells (Nov. 1S, 1902)

To Jocelyn Persse

To Mrs. Humphry Ward (Dec. 16, 1903)

To the Duchess of Sutherland (Dec. 23, 1903)

To William Dean Howells (Jan. 8, 1904)

To Alvin Langdon Coburn (Oct. 2, 1906)

To Hugh Walpole (Aug. 14, 1912)

To Mrs. G. W. Prothero (Sept. 14, 1913)

Criticism

 H. M. Alden·[Memorandum on "Project of Novel by Henry James"l (1900)

 Percy Lubbock·[Point of View in The Ambassadors1 (1921)

 E. M. Forster·[Pattern in The Ambassadors] (1927)

 F. O. Matthiessen·The Ambassadors (1944)

 The Meaning of Paris in The Ambassadors: A Disagreement

 F. R. Leavis (1948)

 Joseph Warren Beach (19S4)

 Joan Bennett (1956)

 Leon Edel (1960)

 Ian Watt·The First Paragraph of The Ambassadors: An Explication (1960)

 Sallie Sears * [Negative Imagination and The Ambassadors] (1968)

 Nicola Bradbury·'The Still Point': Perspective in The Ambassadors (1979)

 Maud Ellmann·"The Intimate Difference": Power and Representation in The Ambassadors (1984/1993)

 Millicent Bell·[Meaning in The Ambassadors] (1991)

 Philip Fisher·E"One of the Master Texts of a Whole Generation"] (1992)

Henry James Chronology

Selected Bibliography