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The Golden Bowl cover art

The Golden Bowl

By: Henry James
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
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Summary

Wealthy Maggie Verver has everything she could ever ask for - except a husband and a title. While in Italy, acquiring art for his museum back in the States, Maggie’s millionaire father, Adam, decides to remedy this and acquire a husband for Maggie. 

Enter Prince Amerigo, of a titled but now poor aristocratic Florentine family. Amerigo is the perfect candidate. Delighted, Maggie then reciprocates by choosing a partner for her widower father: childhood friend Charlotte Stant. The stage is set, and what unfolds is a deep and gripping exploration of fidelity and the politics of love and marriage. 

Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl displays Henry James at his finest: James weaves scene upon scene, set piece upon set piece, into a seamless whole, through a richly dense tapestry of beautiful, flowing prose. Along with The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, it constitutes James’ final and most rewarding phase as a novelist.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio. 

Public Domain (P)2018 Naxos AudioBooks

What listeners say about The Golden Bowl

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Highly overrated ...

Don’t bother unless you already know and really love HJ (and have your downloaded guidance notes at the ready?!)

Bland characters talking a lot of self-indulgent nonsense in long flowery prose; why say it in ten words when you can say it in a ten thousand... Well you get the gist? And so it rambled on and on and on...

Juliet Stevenson has a lovely voice for narration, but even she can’t make a silk purse out of this sows ear... but she did send me to sleep! Needless to say, I didn’t finish this book, it’s really not for me, and it’s not going to be liked by lots of other avid readers/audio-listeners either...

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12 people found this helpful

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outstanding

Juliet Stevenson read this perfectly. She has a fine understanding of James and maintained her fresh perceptiveness throughout .

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3 people found this helpful

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Fantastic text and great story

The story and the richness of the language. Enjoyed the text and the subtle way Henry James tells the story.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Hard Work

This is hard work to listen to . Kept having to rewind to understand what was happening. in the end I gave up. The narrator was very good but the writing was too verbose which is not needed for what is essentially a love story. I wish I'd saved my credit!

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Great for insomniacs

Possibly one of the most boring books ever - really effective if you are trying to go to sleep. Very well read but nonetheless ……. yawn.

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brilliant

wondupdereb
erfulj fdnlf
and subtle account of yheelving rlayiozhiptt pftapp coupled a father and dabju gjtdfry Nd pair moff loverxs
on.mrd-

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Difficult

Struggled with the verbosity and style, often having to repeat chapters to fully understand them. It'll be my last Henry James.

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