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Washington Square
Washington Square
Washington Square
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Washington Square

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A master of American literature presents a tragicomic, coming-of-age romance.

Set in New York against the backdrop of 1880s high society, Washington Square is one of the most beloved novels from master Henry James, and its exploration of interfamily strife and power dynamics, as well as its early take on gender issues, continue to resonate with readers today.
 
Catherine Sloper is the only child of the successful Dr. Austin Sloper, residing with the physician in an upscale home on the edge of Washington Square in New York City. Shy and plain, yet honest and good-natured, Catherine is regarded as a perpetual disappointment by her father, who becomes suspicious of her young fortune-hunting suitor, Morris Townsend. As snooping Aunt Lavinia Penniman works to push Catherine and Townsend together—and provides some much appreciated comic relief—Catherine’s father threatens to cut his daughter off if she pushes forward with the courtship and accepts Townsend’s ultimate proposal of marriage.
 
However, the dashing Townsend is willing to take the bluff, and Catherine’s future hangs on what has become a game. And while Dr. Sloper has reason to question Townsend’s intentions, the situation soon takes on an aspect of cruel sport for the good doctor.
 
Based on a true story told to the author by British actress Fanny Kemble, Washington Square has become a cherished favorite of readers everywhere. Originally serialized in magazines, it is one of the shorter novels in the Jamesian canon, but nevertheless stands as one of the writer’s most enduring tragicomedies and the perfect introduction to the novelist and his work.
 
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
 
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 9, 2016
ISBN9781504039604
Author

Henry James

Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.

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Rating: 3.755614199207398 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked this book, but I did not like any of the characters. It holds up well as a snapshot of another time, a different society. Prefer Jane Austim et al.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have read this book several times before, and it still reveals new things to me. This is a masterful novel, full of intriguing characters and a great plot. And although it's rather sad, James says so much about human nature. It's one of his more accessible books, and a good place to start for someone interested in getting to know his work.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A physician-father (Austin Sloper) marries well and loses, first, a young son, and shortly thereafter, his wife after the birth of a daughter. He realizes early that the daughter is of average intelligence and not beautiful, whereupon he gives up the raising of the child to his live-in widowed sister, for whom he has little respect. But it's convenient and he remains unengaged with the daughter. The daughter, Catherine, grows up shy, uneasy in relationships, and very inexperienced in society. Catherine has an income from her mother, and can expect a large inheritance on her father's death. She is a target for suitors more interested in her money than in her person. Dr. Sloper has high regard for his own ability to evaluate the worth and temperment of acqaintences he meets. When Catherine meets Morris Townsend, she is smitten by the attention he gives her and rapidly develops a love for him. Dr. Sloper recognizes that Morris has a mysterious background, but he doesn't rapidly follow up on investigating the young fellow's life path until he is surprized by the rapid development of a serious relationship between the shy Catherine and the worldly Morris. Upon talking with Morris's sister, with whom Morris lives, all his fears about Morris's character are realized. But it's too late, Catherine has agreed to marry Morris, even though Morris did not ask Dr. Sloper for his daughter's hand in marriage prior to his proposal. Dr. Sloper refuses to give his approval to the marriage and, in addition, announces that Catherine will not inherit any money from him if the marriage occurs. Dr. Sloper proposes that Catherine accompany him on a tour of Europe for six months before she marries, to which Catherine and Morris agree. In some ways, the Dr. Sloper, the physician, acts like a scientist experimenting with a guinea pig in a laboratory. He is detached from a real relationship with his daughter, He just tries various experimental procedures and watches the result and adjusts according to the response.After they return from Europe, Catherine and Morris see each other. Catherine explains to Morris that there is no chance that her father will relent from his plan of disinheritance. Morris realizes that Catherine is not going to inherit her fathers estate and begins, badly, to withdraw from his committment to Catherine, and disappears from the City in a short time. Catherine is devestated, recovers, but is forever wounded by the affair. Long after the engagment is ended, Dr. Sloper still is suspicious that Morris will return. He still will not return the will to its former state of inheritance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was actually assigned me in high school--but amazingly, unlike what is so often the case, I didn't hold it against it. I find this a heartbreaking book--but oh so well worth reading. It's been compared to Jane Austen in its focus on family dynamics, courtship and social satire, but unlike Austen this is really an anti-romance. Catherine Sloper is not cut out of the cloth of which romantic heroines are made. A "good" girl but plain, socially awkward, and none too bright--and her clever father can't forgive her for it. The heart of this book is the battle between father and daughter over a man wooing Catherine. And the hell of it, is her father is right about Morris Townsend, but so badly misjudges and mistreats his daughter that I couldn't quite root for him to succeed. Catherine does change through the course of the book, and some might read the last paragraphs as triumphant--but I found it a Pyrrhic victory. I haven't (yet) gone on to read more of Henry James--I understand this is one of his more readable books--he's known in his later works for very ... er... complex sentences, but that's not the case here in this short novel that falls early in his output. The book was the basis for two films, The Heiress with Olivia de Haviland and Washington Square with Jenifer Jason Leigh. Both are worthy and faithful adaptations.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I decided to listen to this book after listening to The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields which is about Edith Wharton. Edith Wharton and Henry James were good friends and I became curious about this writer. Apparently this book is often compared to Jane Austen's work but I'm not a big fan of Jane Austen and it is therefor no surprise that I didn't particularly like this book.In a nutshell this is the story of a plain but rich girl (Catherine Sloper) who falls in love with a handsome but poor man (Morris Townsend). Catherine's father suspects Townsend's motives and refuses permission for them to marry. He takes Catherine on an extensive tour of Europe hoping that she will give up on Townsend or vice versa. When that doesn't work he makes it plain that Catherine will inherit none of his wealth. Townsend calls off the engagement because he doesn't want to deprive Catherine of her inheritance or so he says. It's pretty clear that Townsend was only interested in Catherine for her money and when he realized that he wouldn't get it he dumps her.Maybe this was a new storyline when it was written but it certainly isn't now. I found it hard to care about Catherine even though I felt I should. She just seemed so insipid. At any rate I was not impressed and I won't be running out to find other books by Henry James.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Rich people live in Washington Square.This story is about one rich woman and poor man.After I read this story, I felt sad.But,I wonder if Moriss actually loves Catherine.I think that rich people is not always happy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first Henry James book I have read. It's somewhat depressing and painful on the part of the heroine, and ends with an equally depressing but correct ending. The themes are wealth, matrimony, honesty and integrity.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I pitied every principal character for their having to eat the fruit of who they were; I never grew to like them. Strangely, I pitied John Ludlow the most--for his passion being given no chance.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After seeing The Heiress on Broadway (starring Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame!), I felt compelled to read the novel behind the play. I'm not sure how long the book has been on my shelf, but the measure is in years rather than months.

    My love of the show certainly influenced my reaction to the book, and it often felt like I was watching the play again as I read. As far as Henry James novels go, this seems to be among the most readable. He is famous for long, convoluted sentences, especially in later works, but there was very little of that here. Washington Square is relatively straight-forward and easy to follow.

    A description of Catherine:
    "She was a healthy, well-grown child, without a trace of her mother's beauty. She was not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a "nice" face; and, though she was an heiress, no one had ever thought of regarding her as a belle. Her father's opinion of her moral purity was abundantly justified; she was excellently, imperturbably good; affectionate, docile, obedient, and much addicted to speaking the truth. In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and though it is an awkward confession to make about one's heroine, I must add that she was something of a glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins out of the pantry, but she devoted her pocket money to the purchase of creme cakes..." p. 12

    and on her character awakening:
    "Catherine meanwhile had made a discovery of a very different sort; it had become vivid to her that there was a great excitement in trying to be a good daughter. She had an entirely new feeling, which may be described as a state of expectant suspense about her own actions. She watched herself as she would have watched another person, and wondered what she would do. It was as if this other person who was both herself and not herself, had suddenly sprung into being, inspiring her with a natural curiosity as to the performance of untested functions." p. 104

    My rating:
    3.5/5 stars

    Bottom line:
    Overall, a very readable and enjoyable Henry James novel, but The Portrait of a Lady is still my favorite. The play is highly recommended!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The great tragedy of this novel is that no one really understood Catherine, and she had so much to give and such value to offer in a relationship. Her father judged rightly of Morris and Aunt Penniman - but never saw the prize in his daughter. I felt such empathy for Catherine in the end, and sorrow that these two men in her life used her so poorly. Mr. James' prose is a joy to read - his descriptions are so interesting and so apt.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I preferred the movie by Jennifer J.L. it is amazing, and the soundtrack makes the tears in my eyes fall.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well, a Henry James story that I actually found readable - a first after quickly giving up on Turn of the Screw and In the Cage. This was a reasonable story about a shy daughter of an overbearing father who is taken advantage of by an avaricious young man after the fortune she is due to inherit from her mother and, in the future, from her father. Felt very Jane Austen-like, but without the charm and James is a less good writer. I felt sorry for Catherine trapped between two men trying to manipulate her emotions, though there is a suggestion at the end that, years later after the father's death, her former lover may have turned over a new leaf. 3/5
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A father and his daughter debate a young man's intentions in a story conveying messages about the admixture of pride and love. As the father of a very young daughter I've received its precaution not to invest too much in a singular vision of the future woman my daughter will grow up to be. The author does an admirable job with the daughter's character arc, very convincingly moving her through the stages. I couldn't decide which way I wanted the ending to go, and still have mixed feelings about how it wound up - as I think I'm supposed to.I was surprised by how present the narrator is in this work, which I thought was antithetical for Mr. James. A quick search confirms this novel was from his early period before he became so entrenched, also explaining the easy reading. This short work is a good place for anyone to start who wants to sample James as an author without getting too bogged down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I did not find it exactly amazing, I did really like Washington Square. Henry James has a way with words that is all his own. One can almost tell immediately when they're reading one of his works. Washington Square actually took me to a place I had been once a couple of decades ago, and I just couldn't help but appreciate the social anthropology found within its pages. In a great many ways, one becomes involved with the lives there. More to come in the blog.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Henry James has a talent of getting to the essence of not only typical personages, but quite surprising and unexpected characters. Page by page he slowly unfolds their true nature. His narrative runs with such fluidity and is worded so exquisitely that upon reading it you get this quiet kind of satisfaction, of gaining something very beautiful and worth knowing. That's what I felt. At first the plot might not seem anything out of the ordinary - an idle dashing young man calculating a marriage to a wealthy, yet not apparently popular young woman. But it's much more than that, as we discover...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Utterly claustrophobic. In this tiny world every scene relates to the courtship of the heroine (Catherine) by a transparently mercenary suitor, Townsend. Some things worth noting: 1) nobody at any point beats Townsend like a wild baboon. Such is justice in this world. 2) Henry James apparently found this narrative so compelling that he can speak of nothing else for a few hundred pages. I call that obsession, and more charitable people would call it... focus? 3) Seriously, I'm not asking for a vulgar diversion like a talking parrot sidekick or a sudden alien invasion. But please, two hundred and eighty pages of endless pondering... should she marry the twit? What happens if she doesn't? Maybe she should? Oh no, Muffy, she daren't! ......zzzzzzz please please Henry you don't have to sprawl like Dickens across your imaginary world, but give us just a smidge of variety!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classic" books for the first time, then file reports on whether or not I think they deserve the labelBook #10: Washington Square, by Henry James (1880)The story in a nutshell:Agreed by most to definitely be one of his minor works, Washington Square is in reality not much more than a novella, written between major novels in the late Victorian Age as James often did throughout his career. And there's not much of a plot either, to tell you the truth; it's primarily the story of Catherine Sloper, a pleasant but rather dim-witted and plain-looking young woman living in the ritzy old-money New York neighborhood of Washington Square, along with her father who she shares a large house with, Austin Sloper, a typical middle-aged business-focused white guy who sorta laughingly condescends to all the people around him who aren't middle-aged business-focused white guys. In fact, this is the crux of the problem between the two of them, the conflict that fuels almost the entire storyline; it seems that Catherine has met a good-looking charmer named Morris Townsend who wishes to marry her, but her father deems him a simple-minded dreamer who's most likely after her money, and Catherine herself as just too much of a blockhead to be able to make a realization like this on her own, which is why he forbids the two to wed for her own good.The father and daughter then whisk off to Europe for a year, as upper-class Americans so often did at the time; but instead of Morris heroically coming to the rescue and bringing his true love back, it turns out that her father was right all along, with Morris turning out to be a kinda skeevy loser who actually was kinda after her money, and who sorta slinks off in this weasely way once she gets back into the country and declares that her allowance will be cut off if they wed. Instead of this making her grateful to her father for seeing the light, though, Catherine just ends up pissed at both of them, eventually growing into a matronly middle-aged old maid who becomes the buddy of the younger crowd in the neighborhood, but who never experiences love for herself even once.The argument for it being a classic:The argument for Washington Square being a classic is not a strong one, truthfully, and seems to most concern what the small novel is not -- it's not one of James' ponderous epics, not one of his later experimental works, but rather a simple and entertaining little story in the spirit of Jane Austen, told in about the most straight-ahead fashion possible. This is why people become fans of James in the first place, after all; he's considered by many to be the godfather of the modern realistic novel, the kinds of no-nonsense, clearly-written stories that comprise most Pulitzer winners and other academically-revered books. Certainly there are a lot of other novels in James' ouevre that are better-written, better-known, more historically important and a much better argument for being a classic, even this book's fans would say; it's just that Washington Square is one of his most accessible novels, a great way to ease yourself into his larger and denser pieces, and thus should be included in "The Canon" as well.The argument against:As mentioned, the argument against Washington Square being a classic is clearly the stronger one, and consists mostly of what we've been talking about; that it is simply too slim and obscure to be considered a classic, certainly a good beginning for people new to James' work but definitely not something to be held up against early-career trans-Atlantic sagas as The Portrait of a Lady and The Bostonians, nor the proto-Modernist experimental stylings of such late-career novels as The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl. It may be a good introduction to James, critics argue, but that comes with a price; it is also a frothily light novel, its plot so wispy as to almost not exist, and not something that will give you a good idea of why James fans are so nuts for his work in the first place.My verdict:So I have to confess, this was the very first book of James that I've ever tackled, and I picked it deliberately because I was a little intimidated by his larger and more well-known ones; James has a certain reputation, after all, especially among academic intellectuals who enjoy thick and challenging books, and I've also heard that his larger novels can sometimes get extremely bogged down in their middles. Ah, but like everyone else, I've discovered the problem to starting with a classic author's lighter and less-important work, which is the same thing mentioned in the criticisms above; that you just really can't get a sense from work like that about why people love that author so much to begin with, of why their work got so famous and respected in the first place. Washington Square comes and goes with the reader barely noticing; just when you think the story's about to get ratcheted up and interesting, suddenly it's over, and you realize that the entire point was to provide not much more than a trifling and amusing afternoon of diversion*. It was decent enough for what it was, and I'm definitely looking forward to checking out the 1997 movie adaptation with Jennifer Jason Leigh, but I certainly can't say that I "know" James' work in any kind of significant way because of reading it, nor can I in good conscience declare Washington Square a classic.Is it a classic? No*And by the way, some final proof of just how lightweight this novel is -- James himself, when doing a retrospective of his ouevre late in life and putting together the revised 24-volume "New York Edition" of his work, actually left Washington Square out on purpose, reportedly because he couldn't even read through it again as an older man, disgusted as he was with the frivolity of the story. When the author himself is disgusted with one of his own books, it's usually not a great sign that it'll be making the canon list anytime soon.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After muttering, grumbling and hating on Henry James for upwards of 40 years (ever since I struggled and failed to read The Ambassadors for an American Lit course in college), I have finally read and enjoyed one of his novels. In truth, I enjoyed it quite a lot. This is the story of unattractive, un-brilliant, motherless Catherine Sloper, who has no prospects of marriage until she somehow attracts the attention of young Mr. Morris Townsend, of the "other" Townsends. His prospects are no better than hers, for although he is delightful to look at, and a charming dinner companion, he has no money, no career and no family connections of the better kind. Catherine's father, a prominent New York physician, will have no part of Catherine's determination to marry Mr. Townsend; she has her own income from her dead mother and Father cannot change that, but he can and emphatically will remove her from his Will and the assured thirty thousand a year she might expect after his death, unless she gives up Mr. Townsend. The exploration of human emotions, motivations, and relationships in this novel are subtle but superb. The movie, "The Heiress" with Olivia deHaviland and Montgomery Clift was based on this novel. The outcome is fundamentally the same, but rather more dramatic in the movie.Review written in September 2011
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I cannot believe how much I loved Washington Square! It was great! It actually borders on fantastic! Washington Square is about Dr. Austin Sloper, a very prominent doctor, his daugther Catherine Sloper, a very unassuming girl, and Lavinia Penniman, Dr. Sloper's meddlesome sister and Catherine's aunt. Now, Dr. Sloper is a very smart but calculating and clinical man. It seems he grew colder when his first child died and then his wife during childbirth with Catherine.

    Dr. Sloper doesn't care for Catherine. He might love her but he doesn't think well of her appearance or her limited intelligence. When, at a big party, Catherine meets and is smitten with Morris Townsend, Dr. Sloper immediately thinks he's after her money since Catherine already has her 10,000 inheritance from her mother and will get 35,000 after Sloper's death and Townsend blew all of his money coasting through Europe.

    It doesn't help matters when Lavinia gets involved acting as a conduit for Catherine and Morris. Things sort of snowball from getting very intricate but simply constructed. I believe in a less gifted author than James (I'm looking at you Nicholas Sparks!) this could have been ridiculous, corny, complicated, and plain stupid.

    However, James knows how to write straightforward prose. Events were always quick and just the facts would suffice. A 12-month vacation abroad was about a chapter or so. It was fantastic. Not to say it was scanty. Quite the contrary, it was incredibly verbose. The last few chapters were great. It could have ended happily and been one big cliche instead it ended like it would have in real life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Is it better to be clever or good is the question that lies at the heart of this short novel. The question is raised about the dull but dutiful daughter, Catherine, by her father, Dr. Austin Sloper. Dr. Sloper has had two major losses in his life with the deaths of a son and his beloved wife which may have contributed to his barely disguised disdain for his infant daughter. Catherine?s physical needs are met by her father with the help of meddlesome Aunt Lavinia, but Catherine is a very sheltered young lady with little self-esteem when the charming and handsome Morris Townsend joins the cast of characters and the struggle to dominate Catherine begins.Washington Square is a short book and one of the most accessible written by Henry James. It is worth the few hours of time it takes to eavesdrop on society in New York City before the time of the Civil War. Life was slower back then and women largely depended on men to live a fulfilled life. It is gratifying to see how Catherine, despite being thought common by her father, used her common sense and growing independence to control her own destiny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The happening is quite an ordinary one, nothing too grand, or incredible. The female protagonist, Catherine, is one of the dullest creatures I've ever encountered in literature (and real life, for that matter). The book is not riddled with melodramatic expressions, or epic gestures.
    Despite all that (or because, I've yet to decide), it is one of the more compelling books I have ever read.

    I adore Henry James' irony, that is most apparent in this book. I love his hopelessly flawed characters. I love his writing style.

    I also find it interesting that while compiling his work, Henry James excluded the book because he didn't like it. I have an affinity to the works the artists themselves despised.

    As of the time of writing this review, I've yet to read any other of Henry James' works, so I cannot draw any kind of comparison or general opinion non him as an author (other than adoring what he did with Washington Square). I have also yet to read the afterward by Michael Cunningham, will do so after I've read the book a second time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I used to think I hated Henry James, based on my reading of The Wings of the Dove, in which I found the plot potentially riveting and yet ruined by James' prose style. Kind of like Women in Love, which I read during the same era. Then I picked up Portrait of a Lady while living in Thailand (which led to me being desperate for books in English other than the newest Dan Brown/John Grisham/you get the idea crap "novel") and rather enjoyed it. A recent read of Altar of the Dead convinced me that I ought to give good old James another try, so I picked up Washington Square, a perennial favorite in the world of SAT essay examples here in NYC. Since my students talk about it all the time, I already knew the storyline and figured it would be nice if I could discuss it with them.The story of Catherine Sloper's ill-fated romance with Morris Townsend is sad, but in that bittersweet, 'it didn't have to be this way' kind of way. There isn't any one person to blame for the sequence of events, but I did find myself wanting to reach into the book to smack some sense into almost all of them at one point or another. I did get the feeling that James was implying that he found the father to be the most to blame, which I can't entirely agree with. The action of the novel takes place almost entirely in the drawing room of Catherine's home on Washington Square, in a corporeal sense, and internally in a more accurate sense. This book is more of a character study than a novel, and looks at the ways in which one person's attitudes and actions can affect the lives of others, a point which is particularly appropriate when discussing a culture not known for its open communication. The writing itself was a lot less rambling than I remember The Wings of the Dove's writing to have been, and not as archaic as some of the other books from this era. However, I don't always notice older language, so I might not be the best judge of that. I did find this to be a very quick and easy read though, and reasonably interesting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After learning that one of my favorite movies, "The Heiress" was based on this book by Henry James, I knew I had to read it someday. I ended up listening to it on Audible and loved it! I just love the formal language, the setting (time and place), and the story. I didn't like the characters, though, as they were either cruel, manipulative, annoying, or stupid. I don't understand why Catherine never married anyone else and why she couldn't see Morris for who he really was. And why did her father insist on being so cruel to his daughter and change his will, years after Morris left? In retrospect, the storyline was pretty well drawn out and kind of weird - dwelling on the Catherine/Morris ill-fated romance for over 20 years. But I still loved the book and the narration was spot on. Now I want to see the movie again, as well as a later version of the movie that I have not seen before.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Morris and Catherine love with each other . But Catherine's father does not like Morris .I think sometimes parents should not say " No. " for their children's love .Of course , maybe parents love their children . So they are worried about their children.But everyone has each personality .So I hope love of Morris and Catherine is congraturated by everyone .
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I listened to the Librivox recording of this. The reader's mispronunciation of numerous words was distracting, but otherwise I enjoyed the story, probably one of the few by James simple enough to manage in an audio version.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very dense slow read for me. I thought the character development was genius. But the plot just didn't warrant the density. It could be summarized in 3-5 sentences.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
     A psychologically acute construction of three interesting characters. Very short chapters with a lot of dialogue exchange, vocal as well as internal. Hardly any prose or description, the characters unfolded and grew as I turned the pages. Very nice.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Catherine Sloper is a not-so-young woman who really hasn’t much to recommend her or to attract a husband. She is somewhat plain, not terribly intelligent, not accomplished in music, dance, conversation or art. However, she does have a significant income (from her mother’s estate) and expectations of inheriting far more from her father, a brilliant physician in mid-19th-century New York City. At her cousin’s engagement party she meets a handsome gentleman, who, encouraged by her widowed Aunt Lavinia Penniman, begins to pay her particular attention.

    The focus of this entire novel is money. But James manages to craft a tale that explores not only wealth, how it is used and what it means, but social class, family structure, filial obedience, parental responsibility, and strength of character. Catherine may be described by everyone as “sweet, but simple,” but she has a will of steel, and will show her father that he has grossly underestimated her.

    Honestly, I don’t know why I waited so long to read a Henry James novel. For some reason I thought he would be “difficult,” with long, complicated sentence structure and archaic language. If you have the same notion, get over it. This is a very approachable story. I was engaged and interested from the beginning. Of course, now I’ve added more Henry James to my tbr mountain … but I think that’s a good thing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a surprisingly ambiguous story with a deceptively simple plot. Set in New York in the early 1900s, the story tells the tale of Catherine Sloper, the rather plain, rather dull daughter of a wealthy, domineering father who becomes the target of a charming gold-digger of a suitor. Will she marry him over the objections of her father? See how simple that is? But this is Henry James, after all, so the plot extends – like the proverbial iceberg - several layers below the surface.Catherine isn’t a terribly sympathetic heroine – her dullness, her lack of intelligence, and her refusal to stick up for herself will almost certainly grate with self-actualized women of the 20th century. However, she’s much more sympathetic than the uniformly unpleasant cast of characters with whom she interacts in this tale, all of whom see her as little more than a tool to be manipulated for their own purposes. Her aunt uses her as the means by which to fulfill her own melodramatic fantasies of secret trysts and the tragedy of doomed love. Her lover sees her as the path to ready fortune and a life of indolence and ease. Even her own father demonstrates heartbreakingly few signs of genuine affection, viewing his daughter alternatively as an interesting scientific experiment (“how will she react if I apply *this* stressor?”) and as a ready affirmation of his own cleverness. The fundamental principle of sarcasm is making the wielder feel superior by belittling another, and in this tale Dr. Sloper wields sarcasm with the same brutal precision he brings to his surgeries.This is no pat morality tale, however, in which the wicked are punished and virtue is rewarded. Nor is it a thematically simplistic novel, characterized by a resolution in which the main characters change or grow in wisdom. The world isn’t as simple as that, and James does us the favor of positing that we know this as well as he does – and that, therefore, we can cope with an ending that is both morally and thematically ambiguous. The novel raises many provoking questions, some of which include: to what extent is a parent justified in preventing their children from making their own mistakes? At what point does principled defiance become merely obstinacy … or, worse, cruelty? To what extent do we (knowingly and unknowingly) justify meddling in the affairs of others to achieve our own ends? Can harm and humiliation caused by the betrayal of others be mitigated by a steadfast refusal never to betray oneself? And is this steadfast determination never to betray one’s own principles an acceptable substitute for living a life devoid of happiness? In other words, despite the relative simplicity of plot, this definitely isn’t the kind of book you take with you to the beach. However, the novel’s moral complexity makes it a worthy read and probably great fodder for book club discussions.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My second book by James and I still remain unimpressed when comparing him to Lawrence, Hardy or the Brontë sisters. Even to Austen.I know he writes about different times, different places and with different aims, but even though I appreciate his correct and composed style, I miss the passionate accounts of other classic authors.In "Washington Square" the setting takes place in the late XIXth New York where we are introduced to the Sloper family, consisting basically of the well respected and intelligent Doctor Sloper, her humble daughter Catherine and a couple of her manipulative aunts. Our heroine is a dull girl, who lives under her father's wing, whose will is completely subjected by the Doctor's poor opinion of her. Dr. Sloper is always kind to her but at the same time he treats her as an inferior creature, not relying on her judgements or her opinions. He is domineering and strict. The biggest praise we hear about her is that she is "a modest and a quiet girl", meaning that she is gullible, submitted and patient. Not exactly as Hardy's Tess or Charlotte's Jane Eyre or Lawrence's Lady Chatterley. The plot is settled when a new character is introduced, a young suitor, Mr Townsend, who wins the girl affection on the spot, seeing an opportunity to get a large sum of money if he marries her.In the end, this book talks about a family conflict, as all the characters have their own interests and only the girl is earnest and innocent in her desires. She is trifled by everybody, by her own father and aunt and also by her lover. I was sorry to witness her endurance, passive self control when her future and happiness were being decided by everybody but herself.All in all, I would say that I enjoyed this story much more in retrospection than while reading it. The whole composition makes sense in the end, and I find it highly realistic, but my guts can't help but shouting out loud to condemn the way women are mistreated in this novel.I'll have to read more books by James to see if that's a "general" in all his works. I hope it's not.

Book preview

Washington Square - Henry James

I

During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession. This profession in America has constantly been held in honour, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forward a claim to the epithet of liberal. In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognised sources of credit. It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science—a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity. It was an element in Dr. Sloper’s reputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his remedies—he always ordered you to take something. Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he was not uncomfortably theoretic, and if he sometimes explained matters rather more minutely than might seem of use to the patient, he never went so far (like some practitioners one has heard of) as to trust to the explanation alone, but always left behind him an inscrutable prescription. There were some doctors that left the prescription without offering any explanation at all; and he did not belong to that class either, which was, after all, the most vulgar. It will be seen that I am describing a clever man; and this is really the reason why Dr. Sloper had become a local celebrity. At the time at which we are chiefly concerned with him, he was some fifty years of age, and his popularity was at its height. He was very witty, and he passed in the best society of New York for a man of the world—which, indeed, he was, in a very sufficient degree. I hasten to add, to anticipate possible misconception, that he was not the least of a charlatan. He was a thoroughly honest man—honest in a degree of which he had perhaps lacked the opportunity to give the complete measure; and, putting aside the great good-nature of the circle in which he practised, which was rather fond of boasting that it possessed the brightest doctor in the country, he daily justified his claim to the talents attributed to him by the popular voice. He was an observer, even a philosopher, and to be bright was so natural to him, and (as the popular voice said) came so easily, that he never aimed at mere effect, and had none of the little tricks and pretensions of second-rate reputations. It must be confessed that fortune had favoured him, and that he had found the path to prosperity very soft to his tread. He had married at the age of twenty-seven, for love, a very charming girl, Miss Catherine Harrington, of New York, who, in addition to her charms, had brought him a solid dowry. Mrs. Sloper was amiable, graceful, accomplished, elegant, and in 1820 she had been one of the pretty girls of the small but promising capital which clustered about the Battery and overlooked the Bay, and of which the uppermost boundary was indicated by the grassy waysides of Canal Street. Even at the age of twenty-seven Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan. These eyes, and some of their accompaniments, were for about five years a source of extreme satisfaction to the young physician, who was both a devoted and a very happy husband. The fact of his having married a rich woman made no difference in the line he had traced for himself, and he cultivated his profession with as definite a purpose as if he still had no other resources than his fraction of the modest patrimony which on his father’s death he had shared with his brothers and sisters. This purpose had not been preponderantly to make money—it had been rather to learn something and to do something. To learn something interesting, and to do something useful—this was, roughly speaking, the programme he had sketched, and of which the accident of his wife having an income appeared to him in no degree to modify the validity. He was fond of his practice, and of exercising a skill of which he was agreeably conscious, and it was so patent a truth that if he were not a doctor there was nothing else he could be, that a doctor he persisted in being, in the best possible conditions. Of course his easy domestic situation saved him a good deal of drudgery, and his wife’s affiliation to the best people brought him a good many of those patients whose symptoms are, if not more interesting in themselves than those of the lower orders, at least more consistently displayed. He desired experience, and in the course of twenty years he got a great deal. It must be added that it came to him in some forms which, whatever might have been their intrinsic value, made it the reverse of welcome. His first child, a little boy of extraordinary promise, as the Doctor, who was not addicted to easy enthusiasms, firmly believed, died at three years of age, in spite of everything that the mother’s tenderness and the father’s science could invent to save him. Two years later Mrs. Sloper gave birth to a second infant—an infant of a sex which rendered the poor child, to the Doctor’s sense, an inadequate substitute for his lamented first-born, of whom he had promised himself to make an admirable man. The little girl was a disappointment; but this was not the worst. A week after her birth the young mother, who, as the phrase is, had been doing well, suddenly betrayed alarming symptoms, and before another week had elapsed Austin Sloper was a widower.

For a man whose trade was to keep people alive, he had certainly done poorly in his own family; and a bright doctor who within three years loses his wife and his little boy should perhaps be prepared to see either his skill or his affection impugned. Our friend, however, escaped criticism: that is, he escaped all criticism but his own, which was much the most competent and most formidable. He walked under the weight of this very private censure for the rest of his days, and bore for ever the scars of a castigation to which the strongest hand he knew had treated him on the night that followed his wife’s death. The world, which, as I have said, appreciated him, pitied him too much to be ironical; his misfortune made him more interesting, and even helped him to be the fashion. It was observed that even medical families cannot escape the more insidious forms of disease, and that, after all, Dr. Sloper had lost other patients beside the two I have mentioned; which constituted an honourable precedent. His little girl remained to him, and though she was not what he had desired, he proposed to himself to make the best of her. He had on hand a stock of unexpended authority, by which the child, in its early years, profited largely. She had been named, as a matter of course, after her poor mother, and even in her most diminutive babyhood the Doctor never called her anything but Catherine. She grew up a very robust and healthy child, and her father, as he looked at her, often said to himself that, such as she was, he at least need have no fear of losing her. I say such as she was, because, to tell the truth—But this is a truth of which I will defer the telling.

II

When the child was about ten years old, he invited his sister, Mrs. Penniman, to come and stay with him. The Miss Slopers had been but two in number, and both of them had married early in life. The younger, Mrs. Almond by name, was the wife of a prosperous merchant, and the mother of a blooming family. She bloomed herself, indeed, and was a comely, comfortable, reasonable woman, and a favourite with her clever brother, who, in the matter of women, even when they were nearly related to him, was a man of distinct preferences. He preferred Mrs. Almond to his sister Lavinia, who had married a poor clergyman, of a sickly constitution and a flowery style of eloquence, and then, at the age of thirty-three, had been left a widow, without children, without fortune—with nothing but the memory of Mr. Penniman’s flowers of speech, a certain vague aroma of which hovered about her own conversation. Nevertheless he had offered her a home under his own roof, which Lavinia accepted with the alacrity of a woman who had spent the ten years of her married life in the town of Poughkeepsie. The Doctor had not proposed to Mrs. Penniman to come and live with him indefinitely; he had suggested that she should make an asylum of his house while she looked about for unfurnished lodgings. It is uncertain whether Mrs. Penniman ever instituted a search for unfurnished lodgings, but it is beyond dispute that she never found them. She settled herself with her brother and never went away, and when Catherine was twenty years old her Aunt Lavinia was still one of the most striking features of her immediate entourage. Mrs. Penniman’s own account of the matter was that she had remained to take charge of her niece’s education. She had given this account, at least, to every one but the Doctor, who never asked for explanations which he could entertain himself any day with inventing. Mrs. Penniman, moreover, though she had a good deal of a certain sort of artificial assurance, shrank, for indefinable reasons, from presenting herself to her brother as a fountain of instruction. She had not a high sense of humour, but she had enough to prevent her from making this mistake; and her brother, on his side, had enough to excuse her, in her situation, for laying him under contribution during a considerable part of a lifetime. He therefore assented tacitly to the proposition which Mrs. Penniman had tacitly laid down, that it was of importance that the poor motherless girl should have a brilliant woman near her. His assent could only be tacit, for he had never been dazzled by his sister’s intellectual lustre. Save when he fell in love with Catherine Harrington, he had never been dazzled, indeed, by any feminine characteristics whatever; and though he was to a certain extent what is called a ladies’ doctor, his private opinion of the more complicated sex was not exalted. He regarded its complications as more curious than edifying, and he had an idea of the beauty of reason, which was, on the whole, meagrely gratified by what he observed in his female patients. His wife had been a reasonable woman, but she was a bright exception; among several things that he was sure of, this was perhaps the principal. Such a conviction, of course, did little either to mitigate or to abbreviate his widowhood; and it set a limit to his recognition, at the best, of Catherine’s possibilities and of Mrs. Penniman’s ministrations. He, nevertheless, at the end of six months, accepted his sister’s permanent presence as an accomplished fact, and as Catherine grew older perceived that there were in effect good reasons why she should have a companion of her own imperfect sex. He was extremely polite to Lavinia, scrupulously, formally polite; and she had never seen him in anger but once in her life, when he lost his temper in a theological discussion with her late husband. With her he never discussed theology, nor, indeed, discussed anything; he contented himself with making known, very distinctly, in the form of a lucid ultimatum, his wishes with regard to Catherine.

Once, when the girl was about twelve years old, he had said to her:

Try and make a clever woman of her, Lavinia; I should like her to be a clever woman.

Mrs. Penniman, at this, looked thoughtful a moment. My dear Austin, she then inquired, do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?

Good for what? asked the Doctor. You are good for nothing unless you are clever.

From this assertion Mrs. Penniman saw no reason to dissent; she possibly reflected that her own great use in the world was owing to her aptitude for many things.

Of course I wish Catherine to be good, the Doctor said next day; but she won’t be any the less virtuous for not being a fool. I am not afraid of her being wicked; she will never have the salt of malice in her character. She is as good as good bread, as the French say; but six years hence I don’t want to have to compare her to good bread and butter.

Are you afraid she will turn insipid? My dear brother, it is I who supply the butter; so you needn’t fear! said Mrs. Penniman, who had taken in hand the child’s accomplishments, overlooking her at the piano, where Catherine displayed a certain talent, and going with her to the dancing-class, where it must be confessed that she made but a modest figure.

Mrs. Penniman was a tall, thin, fair, rather faded woman, with a perfectly amiable disposition, a high standard of gentility, a taste for light literature, and a certain foolish indirectness and obliquity of character. She was romantic, she was sentimental, she had a passion for little secrets and mysteries—a very innocent passion, for her secrets had hitherto always been as unpractical as addled eggs. She was not absolutely veracious; but this defect was of no great consequence, for she had never had anything to conceal. She would have liked to have a lover, and to correspond with him under an assumed name in letters left at a shop; I am bound to say that her imagination never carried the intimacy farther than this. Mrs. Penniman had never had a lover, but her brother, who was very shrewd, understood her turn of mind. When Catherine is about seventeen, he said to himself, Lavinia will try and persuade her that some young man with a moustache is in love with her. It will be quite untrue; no young man, with a moustache or without, will ever be in love with Catherine. But Lavinia will take it up, and talk to her about it; perhaps, even, if her taste for clandestine operations doesn’t prevail with her, she will talk to me about it. Catherine won’t see it, and won’t believe it, fortunately for her peace of mind; poor Catherine isn’t romantic.

She was a healthy well-grown child, without a trace of her mother’s beauty. She was not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a nice face, and, though she was an heiress, no one had ever thought of regarding her as a belle. Her father’s opinion of her moral purity was abundantly justified; she was excellently, imperturbably good; affectionate, docile, obedient, and much addicted to speaking the truth. In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though it is an awkward confession to make about one’s heroine, I must add that she was something of a glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins out of the pantry; but she devoted her pocket-money to the purchase of cream-cakes. As regards this, however, a critical attitude would be inconsistent with a candid reference to the early annals of any biographer. Catherine was decidedly not clever; she was not quick with her book, nor, indeed, with anything else. She was not abnormally deficient, and she mustered learning enough to acquit herself respectably in conversation with her contemporaries, among whom it must be avowed, however, that she occupied a secondary place. It is well known that in New York it is possible for a young girl to occupy a primary one. Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking in the background. She was extremely fond of her father, and very much afraid of him; she thought him the cleverest and handsomest and most celebrated of men. The poor girl found her account so completely in the exercise of her affections that the little tremor of fear that mixed itself with her filial passion gave the thing an extra relish rather than blunted its edge. Her deepest desire was to please him, and her conception of happiness was to know that she had succeeded in pleasing him. She had never succeeded beyond a certain point. Though, on the whole, he was very kind to her, she was perfectly aware of this, and to go beyond the point in question seemed to her really something to live for. What she could not know, of course, was that she disappointed him, though on three or four occasions the Doctor had been almost frank about it. She grew up peacefully and prosperously, but at the age of eighteen Mrs. Penniman had not made a clever woman of her. Dr. Sloper would have liked to be proud of his daughter; but there was nothing to be proud of in poor Catherine. There was nothing, of course, to be ashamed of; but this was not enough for the Doctor, who was a proud man and would have enjoyed being able to think of his daughter as an unusual girl. There would have been a fitness in her being pretty and graceful, intelligent and distinguished; for her mother had been the most charming woman of her little day, and as regards her father, of course he knew his own value. He had moments of irritation at having produced a commonplace child, and he even went so far at times as to take a certain satisfaction in the thought that his wife had not lived to find her out. He was naturally slow in making this discovery himself, and it was not till Catherine had become a young lady grown that he regarded the matter as settled. He gave her the benefit of a great many doubts; he was in no haste to conclude. Mrs. Penniman frequently assured him that his daughter had a delightful nature; but he knew how to interpret this assurance. It meant, to his

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