given to me by a friend because I know it is on a wishlist...

More than a year later - and now I've read it and can't remember who wanted it.

A very delicate portrait of Henry James, his travels from the US to Paris, Florence, Rome, Venice, Geneva. He comes across as a lonely and sometimes awkward man who likes his own company yet wants to be loved, or at least embraced - something prevents his more intimate relationships coming to fulfilment. The chapters are dated and set consecutively, but within each one, there are leaps to past events, which make the narrative sometimes a bit confusing.

The Georgian Lamb House (now National Trust), which he leased in Rye, is also the house of Lucia in EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels.

On the shelf