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Isabel Archer Figures in Some Early Stories of Henry James by Dorothea Krook, Tel Aviv University Many years ago a friend just back from a first tour of France and Italy told me of one of the highlights of her visits to die art museums: a long gaUery, flanked on both sides along aU its length by statues of Venuses, Greek, Roman, and later, some better some worse—and at die far end, soütary and supreme, gazing down die avenue of minor Venuses, die master Venus of a great sculptor. I cannot now remember, nor can tiie friend, who die great sculptor was, nor which die museum—was it the Louvre, or the Uffizi, or perhaps the Vatican? What I do recaU is how the image of that long gaUery flashed into my mind and Ungered there when I read for die first time tiie stories in volumes one through three of Leon Edel's edition of TAe Complete Tales of Henry James. For I found emerging from diem a gaUery of Isabel Archer figures: crude and primitive in the earliest apprentice stories, getting better, or less bad, as I moved on, and becoming very good by die time I reached die Euphemia of "Madame de Mauves" and tiie Bessie Alden of "An International Episode," tiie most mature predecessors of die master figure in TAe Portrait of a Lady. The analogy is imperfect, of course. The long lines of inferior Venuses were not by the master who sculpted die masterpiece at die end of die gaUery, whereas die inferior (embryonic, fragmentary, incomplete) Isabel Archers are die work of die very same artist, then young and immature, who finaUy wrought the master figure; and die difference gives a great advantage to die critic of Henry James. What the critic gains from a stady of these prefigurings of Isabel Archer is threefold: a better understanding of die master figure itself, an insight into James's development as an artist, and a unique Ught on his creative process. Isabel Archer is not the only Jamesian master figure prefigured in diese stories; nor of die component elements of TAe Portrait of a Lady is it only the Isabel figure that is prefigured. In die nine stories, covering the period 1863-1878, in which die early Isabels appear, there are also anticipations of her distinguished successors in the later works, in particular Fleda Vetch in TAe Spoils ofPoynton and MiUy Theale in TAe Wings of the Dove. There are first sketches of otiier characters in TAe Portrait of a Lady, for example, Mrs. Touchett, Ralph Touchett, Henrietta Stackpole, and aU the three suitors, Warburton, Goodwood, and Osmond, each early suitor being usuaUy a fascinating mix of some features of one and some of another of the later suitors. And there are adumbrations, often clearly recognizable, of some of the key relationships, plot devices, and psychological situations of TAe Portrait of a Lady, sometimes blending and fusing witii those of later works like TAe Wings of the Dove. I have already discussed elsewhere five of the nine stories prefiguring Isabel Archer and TAe Portrait (see my "Prefigurings of Isabel Archer"); in this essay, I want to discuss die remaining four: "Poor Richard" (1867), "A Most Extraordinary Case" (1868), "TraveUing Companions" (1870), and "Longstaff's Marriage" (1878). "Poor Richard" is typical of James's weakest apprentice stories: a rambUng, sprawUng, iU-shaped tale, much too long for what it says, and punctuated by fits of violence in speech and act tiiat are not uncommon in these earliest stories, showing how Dostoyevskian the young James could be before he became consistently Jamesian. But the anticipations of Isabel Archer and TAe Portrait of a Lady as a whole are unmistakable. The Isabel figure is the rich, beautiful, gentle country-woman Gertrude Whittaker, there are three suitors, each partly corresponding to one of the three suitors in TAe Portrait, there is a melodramatic act of deception tiiat performs a plot function analogous to Madame Merle's portentous duplicity, tiiough it is much simpler and cruder, and die story ends in the loss of personal happiness for aU the principals. Volume 7 131 Numbers 2-3 TAe Henry James Review...

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