A virtuoso stylist, an underestimated master of depicting changeable emotional states by his contemporaries, a creator of unfinished and multifaceted dramatic situations, a subtle connoisseur of Russian literature, an exemplary aesthete artist who did not recognize aestheticism - all these are components of the brilliant literary reputation of the famous American prose writer Henry James (1843– 1916).

“The Siege of London” is one of the masterpieces of the writer’s “small” prose, the plots of which are based on the collision of European and American cultural consciousness, the “point of view” of an individual and social stereotypes, the “bookish” perception of the world and individual experience. The “conquest” of aristocratic London by an ambitious native of the New World - such is the conflict of this story.

Translation by G. Ostrovskaya.