A father tries to prevent a relationship between his innocent daughter and the man he thinks wants to wed her for her money in Henry James' 1880 book Washington Square.Catherine Sloper, an innocent and reserved person, lives with her dictatorial father, Dr. Austin Sloper, in 1840s New York City. Lavinia Penniman, Catherine's idealistic aunt, offers her comfort. Dr. Sloper learns that Arthur Townsend has moved in with his widowed sister after squandering his previous bequest. Townsend believes he'll wed Catherine nevertheless, and the two are preparing to run away together.While Aunt Penniman extends Townsend an invitation to stay at the Sloper house while they are away, Sloper sends his daughter to Europe for a year in the hopes that she will forget about Townsend. Sloper tries to persuade Catherine out of her engagement when they are in Switzerland, but she resists, shocking Sloper with her determination. Catherine is so heartbroken that she won't even consider another love possibility. She devotes the ensuing years to charitable work and taking care of her ailing father. Townsend and Catherine have one final encounter, which Aunt Penniman arranges. She rejects his attempts now that she is older and wiser and accepts her existence as a spinster.
Henry James OM was an American-born British author born in New York City on 15 April 1843. He is recognized as a crucial figure in the transition from literary realism to literary modernism. Henry James, Sr., an investor, and banker in Albany, was his father. Henry James was medically unfit in 1861 to fight in the American Civil War. For The Nation and Atlantic Monthly, he produced both fiction and nonfiction writing. Later, in 1878, Watch and Ward was published as a book. He left for Paris in 1875 and arrived in London in 1876. The Portrait of a Lady (1878), was released in 1881. He relocated to Sussex in 1897-1898, where he wrote The Turn of the Screw. He wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl between 1902 and 1904. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. His memoirs A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother were both published in 1913. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. He was cremated after passing away on February 28, 1916, in Chelsea, London.
