Portrait of Jennie

by Robert Nathan

Book Overview

Eben Adams, a young painter, falls in love with a beautiful, mysterious girl who appears at key moments in his life. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00005WOGV
• Release Date: March 1962
• Publisher: Eagle Books by Popular Library
• Length: 125 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A delicate enchantment

I first read this book as a naive 14-year-old, long ago. I had never dreamed of such timelessness, such longing, such complete detachment from the real world. The misty, not-quite-real characters have haunted and enchanted me for 40 years.

Enchanting and Magic!

I read this book only once, when I was a teenager, and I am in my fifties now. All these years I have remembered four lines from that book...: "Where I come from nobody knows/Where I'm going everything goes/The wind that blows, the sea that flows/And nobody knows." I loved being in that story; it stayed with me 40 years!

Read the book -- forget the film!

I first came across Portrait of Jennie in a BBC "Boy Meets Girl" play in about 1969, with the utterly wonderful Anna Calder-Marshall playing Jennie, and fell in love with both her and the story on the spot. (I found out later from the BBC that "the recording of this play is no longer in existence" -- vandals!)I found a second-hand copy of the book in 1970. I foolishly lent it (complete with pasted-in treasured press pix of Anna Calder-Marshall as Jennie) to someone a year or two later, and didn't find a replacement till twelve years later. NO ONE borrows that. The author Robert Nathan (1894-1985) normally churned out (I'm told) undistinguished romantic novels; Portrait of Jennie (published 1940) was a one-off in its strangeness, wonder and beauty....Do yourself a favour: read the book, and be haunted for the rest of your life.

Timeless Classic!!

This is one of the most wonderful love stories ever written. I first read this in 7th grade, and since then Robert Nathan has become my most favorite writer and "Portrait of Jennie" has become my most beloved book of all time. This is a timeless classic novelette. I am usually able to read this in one sitting, because the haunting story keeps me so hooked. The climatic, yet tearful ending only proves that love endures all things. If you ever feel depressed or hopeless, read "Portait of Jennie" and let it be your muse for inspiration as Jennie Appleton was Eben's muse during his time of hopelessness.

A dreamy, enchanting and haunting fable of timeless love.

"Starving artist" Eben Adams (undernourished physically, spiritually and emotionally) meets a little girl in the cold winter twilight in Central Park. She is alone, dressed in old fashioned clothes. She asks Adams to: "wait for me to grow up."Thus begins a relationship that will unlock Adams' artistic vision, and lead him to greater success than he could imagine. But more than that, Adams' relationship with the evocative and mysterious Jennie Appleton frees him to explore emotional horizons beyond the esperience of our everyday lives. A beautiful love story and an uplifting statement of faith in the goodness and purpose of life.