Colm Toibin portrays Henry James in his middle years. Disappointed by the mediocre success of his novels, the most significant Anglo-American writer of the turn of the last century embarks on travels and lives in Rome, Venice, and Paris. It is a book that is both profound and original about the loneliness and longing of a man. Toibin has deeply immersed himself in the life of the "Master" and has articulated the unspoken aspects of life as well as the life not lived. A novel that evokes the aura of the lonely artist as well as the allure of places – Venice, Paris, a house in the countryside on the southern coast of England.