This article is about the book. For the painting, see The Ambassadors . The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review. This dark comedy, one of the masterpieces of James' final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son. Strether is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view. Plot summary On his way to Paris to rescue his fiancée's son Chad Newsome from the clutches of a presumably wicked woman, Lambert Strether stops in England and meets Maria Gostrey, an American woman who has lived in Paris for many years. Her cynical wit and worldly-wise opinions start to rattle Strether's preconceived view of the situat