Mrs. Osmond

In Booker Prize winner Banville's bold continuation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, Isabel Archer Osmond probes the extent of her resolve after the death of her beloved cousin Ralph Touchett. To attend Ralph's funeral in England, she leaves her home in Rome under threat from her husband that doing so will forever strain their marriage. She also departs with the knowledge that her stepdaughter Pansy is not the child of Gilbert Osmond and his deceased first wife but rather the offspring of Gilbert and the scheming Madame Merle. This revelation moves Isabel to set in motion an audacious plan to regain her freedom from Merle and Osmond. Along the way, several missteps expose her fragility and the limits of her worldly knowledge. Ultimately, Isabel's optimism, tempered with wisdom earned from experience, equips her to achieve a formidable victory over her antagonists, but at a price.