The Wings of the Dove - Henry James

The critic F. R. Leavis said that the four great English novelists were Jane Austen, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad and Henry James. In the final episode of the Book In series featuring these writers, Rupert and Charlie look at The Wings of the Dove, one of the three novels that James wrote towards the end of his life which one critic called "the final splendid flowering of his genius." James was an American, and in this novel, as in many of his others, he looks at what happens when American youth, beauty and money collide with European culture and cynicism. But why can his books be so hard to read? Why does no one say what they think? Are the English just after the money? And why was Henry James incapable of using one word when he might use a dozen? Join Rupert and Charlie as they talk about this brilliant and singular man, and explore the story of the doomed American heiress Milly Theale as she is caught in the machinations of the scheming English characters she meets in London and Venice.