Publisher's Synopsis
From Emma Tennant, the acclaimed author of Pemberley and Burnt Diaries, comes an unforgettable tale inspired by Henry James. The Beautiful Child is the last known unfinished story by the great American writer, ending on a Jamesian note of terror in a Christmas idyll, amplified throughout by Tennant's trademark feminist-dreamlike style. A chilling account of cruelty and neglect, it suggests a terrifying real scandal behind James's inability to complete his story of a couple who beseech a fashionable artist to paint the child they never had - none other than the dipsomaniac Mr and Mrs Smith, longstanding servants of James until the novel was abandoned. . . .
