Washington Square by Henry James, A Manderley Press edition 2025
Washington Square by Henry James, A Manderley Press edition 2025

Washington Square

£19.99

STOP PRESS! This title has just arrived and is in stock now!

Manderley Press is delighted to announce that Colm Tóibín will introduce a brand-new edition of the New York literary classic Washington Square by Henry James.

Washington Square was first published in 1880 and has since become one of the best-loved and most widely admired novels by Henry James, inspiring writers, artists and playwrights for nearly 150 years.

To showcase this beautiful new edition of the book, we commissioned the acclaimed novelist and literary citic Colm Tóibín to pen a new introduction.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel about James’s life, The Master, Tóibín is perfectly placed to take a fresh look at this well-loved classic. He is an expert in the life and works of Henry James and will re-examine the novel in light of the author’s connections to its New York setting.

Washington Square is the only work of fiction James ever wrote that was named for an actual place – he grew up close by at 21 Washington Place (now 13 Washington Square North, which is owned by NYU and is used as faculty housing for members of their School of Social Work) – and this new edition of his work will evaluate how far this iconic New York location directly influenced the setting of the novel.

The book was adapted for Broadway in the 1940s, and subsequently became a ballet, choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev for the Paris Opera in 1985. Later came films such as The Heiress (1949) and Washington Square in 1997 (starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin and Maggie Smith) – each inspired by James’s original book.

More recently, the American author Hanya Yanagihara’s 2022 novel To Paradise was strongly influenced by Washington Square – the first section of her book taking its title from the novel and loosely following the same setup.

*

Each book ordered through the website is wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a matching silk ribbon, free of charge - and also includes an exclusive bookmark designed to complement the cover design.

STOP PRESS! This title has just arrived and is in stock now!

Manderley Press is delighted to announce that Colm Tóibín will introduce a brand-new edition of the New York literary classic Washington Square by Henry James.

Washington Square was first published in 1880 and has since become one of the best-loved and most widely admired novels by Henry James, inspiring writers, artists and playwrights for nearly 150 years.

To showcase this beautiful new edition of the book, we commissioned the acclaimed novelist and literary citic Colm Tóibín to pen a new introduction.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel about James’s life, The Master, Tóibín is perfectly placed to take a fresh look at this well-loved classic. He is an expert in the life and works of Henry James and will re-examine the novel in light of the author’s connections to its New York setting.

Washington Square is the only work of fiction James ever wrote that was named for an actual place – he grew up close by at 21 Washington Place (now 13 Washington Square North, which is owned by NYU and is used as faculty housing for members of their School of Social Work) – and this new edition of his work will evaluate how far this iconic New York location directly influenced the setting of the novel.

The book was adapted for Broadway in the 1940s, and subsequently became a ballet, choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev for the Paris Opera in 1985. Later came films such as The Heiress (1949) and Washington Square in 1997 (starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin and Maggie Smith) – each inspired by James’s original book.

More recently, the American author Hanya Yanagihara’s 2022 novel To Paradise was strongly influenced by Washington Square – the first section of her book taking its title from the novel and loosely following the same setup.

*

Each book ordered through the website is wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a matching silk ribbon, free of charge - and also includes an exclusive bookmark designed to complement the cover design.

Reviews

“The delicate, feline Washington Square, is perhaps the only novel in which a man has successfully invaded the feminine field and produced work comparable to Jane Austen’s.”
Graham Greene in The Lost Childhood

“Washington Square is a ‘tale of silent suffering’ that very obviously recalls Eugenie Grandet – to say which doesn’t mean that it isn’t a very original and very characteristic creation, fine in a way that is beyond Balzac.”
F.R. Leavis in The Great Tradition

Author and Contributors

Henry James was born in 1843 in New York, and attended schools in New York and later in London, Paris and Geneva, entering the Law School at Harvard in 1862. In 1865 he began to contribute reviews and short stories to American journals and in 1875 settled for a year in Paris, where he met Flaubert, Turgenev and other literary figures. He later moved to London, where he became such an inveterate diner-out that in the winter of 1878–79 he confessed to accepting 107 invitations. In 1898 he relocated to Lamb House in Rye, Sussex, becoming naturalized in 1915. He was awarded the O.M., and died early in 1916. In addition to many short stories, plays, books of criticism, autobiography and travel, he wrote 20 novels, including The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Wings of the Dove, What Maisie Knew and The Golden Bowl.

Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of eleven novels, including Brooklyn, The Magician and, most recently, Long Island, and two collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín was appointed the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022–24.

Rose Wong is a Chinese–American illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her BFA in Communications Design with an emphasis in Illustration from Pratt Institute. She frequently contributes to The New York Times, and has honed her skills in conceptualizing complex ideas into simple visuals. Her work has been recognized by American Illustration and in 2019, she was awarded a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators for her short form comic Okay Okay www.rosewongart.com

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