''The Ivory Tower'' is an unfinished novel by

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, posthumously published in 1917. The novel is a brooding story of

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...

America. It centers on the riches earned by a pair of dying millionaires and ex-partners, Abel Gaw and Frank Betterman, and their possibly corrupting effect on the people around them.

Plot summary

Graham ("Gray") Fielder returns from Europe to the wealthy resort of

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

, to see his dying uncle Frank Betterman. Rosanna Gaw, the daughter of Betterman's embittered ex-partner Abel Gaw, is also at Newport. She has succeeded in bringing about a partial reconciliation between the two elderly men. Gaw and Betterman both die, and Fielder receives a large inheritance from his uncle. Gray is inexperienced at business, so he entrusts the management of the fortune to the unscrupulous Horton Vint. At this point the novel breaks off. From his extensive notes it appears that James intended Vint to betray Fielder's trust much as Kate Croy did with Milly Theale in ''

The Wings of the Dove ''The Wings of the Dove'' is a 1902 novel by Henry James. It tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her effect on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honourable ...

''. Fielder would then magnanimously forgive Vint, but it is not certain if he would marry Rosanna, who may be in love with Gray.

Major themes

James meant this novel as an attack on the gigantic wealth of the Gilded Age plutocrats. He presents Abel Gaw with almost Gothic intensity as a predatory financier, "with his beak, which had pecked so many hearts out, visibly sharper than ever." James portrays Betterman, as his name suggests, in a slightly more favorable light if only because he has repented somewhat for his past financial sins. The younger people are equally reprehensible, with the possible exceptions of Rosanna and Gray. "We're all unspeakably corrupt," admits Vint. Vint and his lover Cissy Foy are reminiscent of Amerigo and Charlotte in ''

The Golden Bowl ''The Golden Bowl'' is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. ''The Golden Bowl'' explores the tangle of int ...

'' in their love of wealth and pleasure. According to James' notes, Fielder eventually comes to recognize "the black and merciless things that are behind the great possessions" and how those possessions have been "so dishonored and stained and blackened at their very roots, that it seems...they carry their curse with them." Which is probably as definite a statement of the novel's import as can be found.

References

* ''The Novels of Henry James'' by Edward Wagenknecht (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983) * ''The Novels of Henry James'' by Oscar Cargill (New York: Macmillan Co., 1961)

External links

Text of ''The Ivory Tower'' with the author's notes (1917)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivory Tower, The 1917 American novels Novels published posthumously Novels by Henry James Unfinished novels Novels set in Rhode Island NYRB Classics