Perhaps the most appealing of all the feminine "vessels of consciousness" that grace the novels of Henry James, Isabel Archer is a young American orphan who receives an inheritance from an uncle. Under the wing if an aunt, she meets Madame Merle, her aunt's sophisticated friend, who instills in her the sense of European sophistication which overpowers her common sense. Isabel marries widower Gilbert Osmond, a friend of Madame Merle, who projects refined tastes and intellectual detachment. She is utterly captivated by Osmond's Languitud charms; her is thrilled to have won his superior prize. But in the end Isabel discovers that her husband and Madame Merle are both exemplars of an appalling, complex depravity that has become the central issue in her life.