The Wings of the Dove

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time


Set amid the splendor of London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naïve, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation. As Amy Bloom writes in her Introduction, “The Wings of the Dove is a novel of intimacy. . . . [James] gives us passion, he gives us love in its terrible and enchanting forms.”