The Pupil

A young Oxford graduate takes a position as tutor to the son of a wandering American family in Europe. The Moreens are charming, restless and always short of money. Their son Morgan is clever, observant and unwell, and he sees his parents more clearly than anyone. As the tutor and his pupil grow closer, the question of who is responsible for whom becomes impossible to answer.

Henry James's The Pupil is a short, intense study of loyalty, dependence and the cost of seeing the truth. It is one of his most affecting shorter works, written with the psychological precision that marks his finest fiction. Readers who enjoy character-driven stories, moral ambiguity and the atmosphere of nineteenth-century European resorts will find much to admire here.

This edition contains the complete text of The Pupil in eight chapters, a new introduction, a guide to the principal characters, a summary of the story, a note on its themes, a glossary of words and phrases that may be unfamiliar, and questions for discussion. It is designed for general readers, students and book clubs coming to the story for the first time.