A fifty-year-old man visits Florence and makes notes in his diary about a disturbing event that has just occurred: he has met the daughter of the one who thirty years ago was the love of his youth. A young Englishman is courting her, and the fifty-year-old can see in this relationship nothing but an exact repetition of his sentimental past: a bitter story that has left him with a deep and painful wound. He insists on saving his young alter-ego from the danger that threatens him. Do similar circumstances lead to the same results? Is there any point in projecting our lives onto others? This work, part parable, part poignant observation on human destiny, contains the mystery, ambiguity, elegant lightness, and irony so characteristic of Henry James's literary world. Before us is a miniature novella that provides pure pleasure – perhaps because of the dazzling prose, or perhaps because it slips into consciousness as a concentrated dose of pleasure. Written in 1880 between "Daisy Miller" and "Portrait of a Lady," we think "The Diary of a Fifty-Year-Old Man" is the perfect key to Henry James's work.