Widower Adam Verver is a wealthy American who has emigrated with his attractive daughter, Maggie, for the sole purpose of luxuriating in the brilliant shine of gilded society. Then Maggie falls in love and weds a charming Italian prince named Amerigo. Adam, too, finds romance when he meet beautiful young Charlotte. But it is the innocent gift of a golden bowl that shatters the polished surface of their charmed lives. For a dark mystery is revealed in the bowl, a mystery that could ruin them.

But before that can happen, Maggie determines she must have her revenge.

This is the final--and in many ways the most accomplished--novel in James' illustrious career.