How long does it take to read The Ambassadors?
The Ambassadors by Henry James takes about 8 hours 4 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 4 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1903. 440 pages, about 121,000 words.
17 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 27 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 4 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 3 minutes |
The page count is the median across 231 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Chad Newsome has gone to Paris. He is charmed by Old World fascinations and caught up in the leisurely craft and bohemian direction of European worldliness. An older woman of rank and adventurous but subtle skill, Madame de Vionnet, strokes his ego and does her best to keep Chad in Paris indefinitely. Chad's mother lives in Woollett, Mass., and wants her son to return to run the family business. Mrs. Newsome is an invalid and cannot go to Paris to fetch her son herself, so she employs Lambert Strether and Sarah Pocock to return Chad to Massachusetts. Sarah has been to Paris before and is aware of its attractiveness, so her determination to succeed in this task is fixed and uncompromising. Strether is of later middle age, however, and inspired by the fairytale of a beautiful life in Europe. Mrs. Newsome has promised to marry Strether if he can bring Chad home. Strether is completely enamored by the Parisian character and its enchantments and has a difficult time completing his mission. The drama of reestablishing Chad in business in America and of coming to terms with the mythological romance of France leaves the reader unbalanced, trying to recover equilibrium in the real world. Those involved with Chad's rescue are compelled to recognize the deep intimacies of personal attachment and the accepted proprieties of direct consequence. The success and failures of such an undertaking are unpredictable. The result of every character's attempt to steer Chad rightly is a strange conglomeration of role reversal, fantasy, and truth.
Subjects: Man-woman relationships, Fiction, Romance, Americans, Historical Fiction, Young men
