Maggie Verver, the daughter of the American millionaire Adam Verver, a collector and fine connoisseur of artistic values, marries Prince Amerigo, a young Italian from an impoverished aristocratic family. Maggie is in love and happy, but she is worried about the idea that her long-widowed father, passionate about improving his collection, will be left all alone. On the eve of the wedding, Maggie introduces her father to her old friend, the charming American Charlotte Stant, believing that he will benefit from the company of the young lady. Maggie does not realize that by letting a seductive woman into the house, she risks being betrayed and deceived... Henry James (1843–1916), a recognized classic of American literature, a master of psychological prose, describes the complex relationship of two couples, connected by a whim of fate with bonds of love, and answers to the eternal question: is wealth a gift of fate or a curse?..