Other editions of book The Awkward Age

Lang: - English, Pages 586. Reprinted in 2019 with the help of original edition published long back [1908]. This book is Printed in black & white, Hardcover, sewing binding for longer life with Matt laminated multi-Colour Dust Cover, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. (Any type of Customisation is possible with extra charges). Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions.

Save when it happened to rain Vanderbank always walked home, but he usually took ahansom when the rain was moderate and adopted the preference of the philosopher whenit was heavy. On this occasion he therefore recognised as the servant opened the door acongruity between the weather and the “four-wheeler” that, in the empty street, under theglazed radiance, waited and trickled and blackly glittered. The butler mentioned it as onsuch a wild night the only thing they could get, and Vanderbank, having replied that it wasexactly what would do best, prepared in the doorway to put up his umbrella and dashdown to it. At this moment he heard his name pronounced from behind and on turningfound himself joined by the elderly fellow guest with whom he had talked after dinner andabout whom later on upstairs he had sounded his hostess. It was at present a clear questionof how this amiable, this apparently unassertive person should get home—of the possibilityof the other cab for which even now one of the footmen, with a whistle to his lips, cranedout his head and listened through the storm. Mr. Longdon wondered to Vanderbank if theircourse might by any chance be the same; which led our young friend immediately toexpress a readiness to see him safely in any direction that should accommodate him. As thefootman’s whistle spent itself in vain they got together into the four-wheeler, where at theend of a few moments more Vanderbank became conscious of having proposed his ownrooms as a wind-up to their drive. Wouldn’t that be a better finish of the evening than justseparating in the wet? He liked his new acquaintance, who struck him as in a mannerclinging to him, who was staying at an hotel presumably at that hour dismal, and who,confessing with easy humility to a connexion positively timid with a club at which onecouldn’t have a visitor, accepted his invitation under pressure. Vanderbank, when theyarrived, was amused at the air of added extravagance with which he said he would keep thecab: he so clearly enjoyed to that extent the sense of making a night of it. “You young men, Ibelieve, keep them for hours, eh? At least they did in my time,” he laughed—“the wild ones!But I think of them as all wild then. I dare say that when one settles in town one learns howto manage; only I’m afraid, you know, that I’ve got completely out of it. I do feel really quitemouldy. It’s a matter of thirty years—!”“Since you’ve been in London?”

Making her debut in London society, Nanda Brookenham is being groomed for the marriage market. Thrust suddenly into the superficial circle that surrounds her mother, the innocent but independent-minded young woman even finds herself in competition with Mrs Brookenham for the affection of the man she admires. Only an elderly bachelor, Mr Longdon, is immune to this world of scheming, and determines to rescue Nanda from its influences out of loyalty to the deep love he once felt for her grandmother. In The Awkward Age (1899), Henry James explores the English character, and the clash between old and new money with a light and subtly ironic touch to create a devastating critique of society and its machinations.

It comes back to me, the whole "job," as wonderfully amusing and delightfully difficult from the first; since amusement deeply abides, I think, in any artistic attempt the basis and groundwork of which are conscious of a particular firmness. On that hard fine floor the element of execution feels it may more or less confidently DANCE; in which case puzzling questions, sharp obstacles, dangers of detail, may come up for it by the dozen without breaking its heart or shaking its nerve. It is the difficulty produced by the loose foundation or the vague scheme that breaks the heart—when a luckless fatuity has over-persuaded an author of the "saving" virtue of treatment.

Henry James OM (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) was an American-British author 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 renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between emigre Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove. His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often made use of 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.James also 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 subject in 1915, one year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. (wikipedia.org)

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Brookenham host an effete, rather corrupt social circle. They are the parents of worthless Harold and sweet but knowledgeable Nanda (age eighteen). Mr. Longdon attends one of their social functions and is amazed at how much Nanda resembles her grandmother, his long-ago love who married another man. Vanderbank, a young civil servant with little money, admires both Mrs. Brookenham (nicknamed "Mrs. Brook") and Nanda. Mrs. Brook seems to want an affair with "Van" but he appears more interested in Nanda.

The Awkward Age is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in Harper's Weekly in 1898–1899 and then as a book later in 1899. Originally conceived as a brief, light story about the complications created in her family's social set by a young girl coming of age, the novel expanded into a general treatment of decadence and corruption in English fin de siècle life. James presents the novel almost entirely in dialogue, an experiment that adds to the immediacy of the scenes but also creates serious ambiguities about characters and their motives.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Brookenham host an effete, rather corrupt social circle. They are the parents of worthless Harold and sweet but knowledgeable Nanda. Mr. Longdon attends one of their social functions and is amazed at how much Nanda resembles her grandmother, his long-ago love who married another man. Vanderbank, a young civil servant with little money, admires both Mrs. Brookenham and Nanda. Mrs. Brook seems to want an affair with "Van" but he appears more interested in Nanda. Mr. Longdon promises him a dowry if he marries Nanda.

Henry James, OM (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) was an American author 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 renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

The Awkward Age is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in Harper’s Weekly in 1898-1899 and then as a book later in 1899. Originally conceived as a brief, light story about the complications created in her family’s social set by a young girl coming of age, the novel expanded into a general treatment of decadence and corruption in English fin de siècle life. James presents the novel almost entirely in dialogue, an experiment that adds to the immediacy of the scenes but also creates serious ambiguities about characters and their motives. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Brookenham host an effete, rather corrupt social circle. They are the parents of worthless Harold and sweet but knowledgeable Nanda (age eighteen). Mr. Longdon attends one of their social functions and is amazed at how much Nanda resembles her grandmother, his long-ago love who married another man. Vanderbank, a young civil servant with little money, admires both Mrs. Brookenham (nicknamed ”Mrs. Brook”) and Nanda. Mrs. Brook seems to want an affair with ”Van” but he appears more interested in Nanda. Mr. Longdon promises him a dowry if he marries Nanda.