Henry James had arrived at such mastery of the forms and uses of fiction by the time he published
The Awkward Age
in 1899 that this story of a young girl introduced into a casually corrupt circle of sophisticates is at once a universal drama of innocence confronting evil, a detailed examination of a social order, and a stunning picture of a civilization in crisis. On the verge of what was to be his greatest period of creativity, James produced, in
, one of the finest, most rounded, and, in some ways, most intimate and revealing of his long string of masterpieces.
Introduction by Cynthia Ozick