The Wings of the Dove and The Portrait of a Lady: A Study of Henry James's Later Phase

Abstract

I whatever henry James's feelings may have been toward his favorite “Albany cousin,” Mary (“Minny”) Temple, while she lived, it is clear that at her death in 1870, she left with him an indelible image that made available to him as a writer large areas of human experience. This image figured more or less obscurely in several of his stories and minor female characters but according to his own testimony was most fully and consciously operative in his creation of Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady and of Milly Theale in The Wings of the Dove.