The young and spirited Isabel Archer visits her wealthy relatives in England and rejects marriage proposals by two more or less worthy suitors, inherits a fortune and then is manipulated into marriage to one of the most cruel persons imaginable: Gilbert Osmond...This is just scratching the surface of this huge, monumental work; rich in both its prose, its characters and its numerous themes. A few of the major ones being love, death, personal responsibility, personal identity, freedom, ethics or (lack thereof) and the New world versus the Old world. This story finds new admirers from generation to generation...