Henry James was born in 1843 and lived until 1916. He was a dominant figure in American letters, and rose above the wealth and affluence of his inherited circumstances to build for himself a meaningful life as one of our greatest prose stylists.

THE EUROPEANS concerns an expatriate American, Eugenia, and her artist brother, Felix Young. Eugenia is the morganatic wife of a German prince, but she is to be repudiated in favor of a state marriage; thus she leaves for Boston to make an appropriate match of her own.