The Ambassadors (Classic Serial)

Henry James

May 2013 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by Henry Goodman and Full Cast

About this audiobook

Adapted by Graham White from the Henry James novel which centres on the predicament of Lambert Strether, a fifty-something New Englander lately arrived in Paris. Henry Goodman stars as the hapless protagonist in a novel many critics find James' finest. Episode 1: Strether has been sent to the city to persuade the fun-living son of his wealthy fiancee back home in Woolett to return home. But now Strether too falls under the spell of Paris.Episode 2: Strether had hoped to persuade the fun-living son of his wealthy fiancee to return home to New England. But now Strether has fallen under the spell of the beautiful Mme de Vionnet. More ambassadors are sent by the angry fiancee to bring both men home. With a full cast. Directed by Peter Kavanagh.

About the author

Henry James was born on 15th April 1843 in Washington Place, New York to a wealthy and intellectual family and as a youth travelled between Europe and America. His first novel, Watch and Ward, was published in 1871 after first appearing serially in Atlantic Monthly. After a brief period in Paris, James moved first to London and then later to Rye in Sussex. He became a British citizen in 1915 to declare his loyalty to his adopted country as well as to protest against America's refusal to enter the war on behalf of Britain. Henry James was a prolific writer and critic and from around 1875 until his death he maintained a strenuous schedule of publications in a variety of genres: novels, short story collections, literary criticism, travel writing, biography and autobiography. He died in 1916.