The Europeans

Two European travelers arrive in Boston to visit cousins they barely know, one seeking escape, the other seeking something brighter. Eugenia, a morganatic princess cast out by a German court, needs a new life before her prince divorces her for a royal bride. Felix, her easygoing artist brother, simply wants to paint happy pictures. Their staid New England relatives the Wentworths have never met anyone like this: people who find American reserve strange, who speak of love and passion without apology, who treat American money with a fascination that is somehow both flattering and unsettling. What follows is a graceful comedy of incompatible sensibilities, where everyone misreads everyone else, and where the real question is not who will marry whom, but whether authenticity can survive in any society that demands conformity. James called this a comedy, and it is, though its wit carries an edge: Eugenia's predicament is genuinely dire, and her European knowingness may be the only thing that can crack the Wentworths' impenetrable decency. It remains his sunniest novel, a small gem of transatlantic irony.