-A social comedy, a melodramatic romance and a realistic novel of manners. English original first edition (1877)- Christopher Newman, a 'self-made' American millionaire in France, falls in love with the beautiful aristocratic Claire de Bellegarde. Her family, however, taken aback by his brash American manner, rejects his proposal of marriage. When Newman discovers a guilty secret in the Bellegardes' past, he confronts a moral dilemma: should he expose them and thus gain his revenge? James's masterly early work is at once a social comedy, a melodramatic romance and a realistic novel of manners. The American generally flows well and is easily accessible to today's reader, more so than some of James's later novels. Newman's friendship with Valentin de Bellegarde is particularly well drawn, and the descriptions of upper-class Parisian life are vivid. Henry James (1843-1916) was an American novelist and, as a naturalized English citizen from 1915, a great figure in the transatlantic culture.