Originally published between January and December 1875 as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly, it is a bildungsroman that traces the development of the title character, a sculptor.

Rowland Mallet, a wealthy Bostonian bachelor and art connoisseur, visits his cousin Cecilia in Northampton, Massachusetts, before leaving for Europe.

Cecilia introduces him to the local sculptor, Roderick Hudson, a young law student who sculpts in his spare time.

Mallet believes that in Rome, Roderick will be exposed to the kind of artistic influences which will allow his natural talent to fully mature.

Roderick is galvanized by the offer, but he fears his highly protective mother's disapproval and urges Mallet to meet with and reassure her.

During a farewell picnic attended by many of the Hudsons' friends and family, Mallet realizes he has fallen in love for the first time in his life.

Mallet listens to all this with the feeling that fortune has played an elaborately devised trick on him; that just as he had finally found love, it had been stolen away because of his own act of generosity.

After a rough start in Rome, Roderick begins to flourish in the arts community, building a reputation as an original talent and a charming, if ill-mannered, character.

Meanwhile, Mallet attempts to suppress his feelings for Mary Garland by cultivating a relationship with Augusta Blanchard, another expatriate American artist living in Italy.

The two men return to Rome where, one fateful day, Christina Light enters Roderick's studio to peruse his artwork.

She is, by general agreement, one of the most startlingly beautiful young women in Europe, and her mother is determined to marry Christina to a wealthy and titled gentleman.

The impoverished Roderick is nonetheless instantly infatuated with Christina, eventually obtaining approval to sculpt her bust and thereby ingratiating himself with the family.

Although the prematurely world-weary Christina is slow to show her feelings for Roderick, she comes increasingly to be attracted to him and to his status as an artistic "genius".