Five-minute digest
The Ambassadors
Summary
The Ambassadors is the novel Henry James himself considered his best, published in 1903 after serialization in the North American Review. Lambert Strether, a widowed editor of fifty-five from Woollett, Massachusetts, is sent to Paris by his patroness, the wealthy widow Mrs. Newsome, whom he expects to marry. His mission is to bring home her son Chad, who has lingered in Europe for years and is presumed to have fallen into an unworthy entanglement with a woman. Strether arrives expecting corruption and instead finds Chad transformed, polished, gentle and considerate, apparently for the better through his friendship with the elegant Madame de Vionnet, a separated Frenchwoman with a daughter. Guided by the shrewd American expatriate Maria Gostrey, Strether gradually falls under the spell of Paris itself. In the garden of the sculptor Gloriani he urges young Little Bilham to live all he can, the outburst at the heart of the book. Because he fails to send Chad home, Mrs. Newsome dispatches a second set of ambassadors, her daughter Sarah Pocock with her husband and his sister Mamie, who see nothing in Paris but impropriety. Strether sides with Chad and loses his own future in Woollett. Late in the book, on a day alone in the French countryside, he comes upon Chad and Madame de Vionnet boating together and understands that their relationship is more intimate than he had allowed himself to believe. He nevertheless urges Chad not to abandon her, but Chad seems ready to return to America and to business, including advertising. Strether declines Maria Gostrey's quiet offer of a life together, saying that he must not get anything for himself out of the affair, and prepares to go home. Told almost entirely through Strether's consciousness, the novel is a study of perception and of a late awakening, and it rewards slow and patient reading by advanced students.
Top Lessons
Seeing for oneself
Strether comes to Paris with fixed opinions and slowly learns to trust what he actually sees. James invites readers to compare his judgments at the start and the end.
Living fully
Strether's advice to Little Bilham comes from regret. Students can weigh it against the duties he has neglected and the ones he keeps.
Integrity without reward
Strether refuses to gain anything for himself. James presents a quiet moral choice that costs him both a marriage and a new love.
Verified Quotes
“Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.”
“If you haven’t had that what _have_ you had?”