Introduction & Notes by Ian FA Bell Professor of English Literature University of Keele Washington Square marks the culmination of James's apprentice period as a novelist With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners & behaviour in the New York of the 1870's a period of great change in the life of the city This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial & industrial expansion Through the relationships between Austin Sloper a celebrated physician & his sister Lavinia Penniman his daughter Catherine & Catherine's suitor Morris Townsend James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles & performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression