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Henry James's The Bostonians is Schreckroman masquerading in the garb of social satire; as chilling a tale of identity rape as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Behind the civilized veneer of the Jamesian mise-en-scène, devious assaults are regularly visited upon the innocent. Whether in the name of love or unrepentent lust after domination, desire for the vulnerable object often verges upon abusive possession. The rankest such exploitations are visited by the servants in Turn Of The Screw upon their young charges. The Bostonians antedates the novella by some 20 years, and eerily anticipates its predatory theme.
James's naif in The Bostonians is Verena Tarrant, an entrancing young woman in her late' teens, or barely beyond them. She is the only child of an itinerant charlatan, the repulsive Selah Tarrant, latterly a mesmerist in attendance to Boston's post-bellum bohemian set. Her no less objectionable mother is a narcissistic simpleton whose social pretentions far exceed her doubtful station.
Although not well educated, Verena owns a surprising gift for oratory. The North has won, and women's suffrage has succeeded abolition as the burning issue of the day. Verena debuts in fringe salons, speaking out on the “great cause”; it is quickly evident that a greater public awaits. While profit does not interest her, others have high hopes of coasting to wealth and fame on her gifts. Her father inflates himself by “starting her up” with mesmeric flimflam. Her mother and a notorious journalist lag not far behind in great expectation at her expense. James's ironic account of Verena's tawdry antecedents, of high-minded reformers, vague eccentrics, and blarney merchants, sets the stage for the fateful triangulation which will consume her.