Henry James

Henry James’s Daisy Miller was an immediate sensation when it was first published in 1878 and has remained popular ever since. In this novella, the charming but inscrutable young American of the title shocks European society with her casual indifference to its social mores. The novella was popular in part because of the debates it sparked about foreign travel, the behaviour of women, and cultural clashes between people of different nationalities and social classes. This Broadview edition presents an early version of James’s best-known novella within the cultural contexts of its day. In addition to primary materials about nineteenth-century womanhood, foreign travel, medicine, philosophy, theatre, and art—some of the topics that interested James as he was writing the story—this volume includes James’s ruminations on fiction, theatre, and writing, and presents excerpts of Daisy Miller as he rewrote it for the theatre and for a much later and heavily revised edition.

Daisy Miller

ceren koc

dija

Why did it have to end that way? 

*A whisper from the back of my mind*
Becaus it's a classic

Jasmine Stanway

** spoiler alert **
           Daisy Miller was not what I expected it to be. I really liked it, but I expected Daisy’s character and her relationship with Winterbourne to be much more developed. Of course being a short story, there was only so much time for it. I find with HJ that he enjoys unrequited love tales, as this story, much like Pandora, focuses on a young man in love with a girl in a while other league who barely takes notice of him. It’s an interesting story, a girl who doesn’t seem to pick up on the social cues of her new circle, carrying an insolent sort of outlook towards such manners that ultimately leads to her downfall. It’s hard to discern what kind of message HJ was trying to get across in this story- I suppose it is left up to our own interpretation more or less- but overall, I liked the concept, and appreciated being able to finish it in one sitting ♥️

Daisy Miller, an innocent yet bold American girl, runs afoul of the European code of conduct at the turn of the twentieth century.

andrea

mr henry james has very interesting ideas and themes he expresses in his works and i do know that in realist texts the characters are much more important than the plot itself, but this was so boring. it gave me nothing sorry

Trever

This is the first Henry James that I've finished. The writing is okay, but overall this just felt a little...odd, I guess. Daisy is someone who shows up and talks sass to people, and she seems like the prototype for a lot of male-created empowered women in fiction (e.g. Holly Golightly). It's really more of a character study than a full story. But that ending was unnecessary.

Angela Guilherme

Não gostei particularmente deste conto. A Daisy irritou-me porque parecia querer chocar só por chocar. Se as suas atitudes fossem motivadas por um sentimento verdadeiro, ainda conseguia perceber, mas não. E depois agia como se não percebesse que estava a fazer algo de mal (de acordo com as convenções sociais da época) e fiquei sem perceber se era parvinha ou se era sonsa.

Também não gostei particularmente de Winterbourne. A facilidade com que desculpava as atitudes de Daisy só porque esta era muito bela. Como se a beleza desculpasse a tontice...

Irem

Dönemin Avrupa ile Amerika arasındaki kültür farkına ve bu farkın şokunu yaşayan Amerikalı bir kız üzerinden liberalizm ile muhafazakarlık, kadın-erkek dünyası ve bireysel özgürlüklere dair kısa bir anlatı. Ancak benim çok sevdiğimi söyleyemeyeceğim.

Lucía RG

"It seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty, but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her."
This line broke my heart

adria

I didn't particularly enjoy the point of view from which the book war narrated. I would have loved to read from Daisy's POV. Other than that, however, I absolutely loved this.

Nicolás Niño 

Tania Cheong

Daisy Miller is a short read about... well Daisy Miller of course! Her character is one that we have to pay close attention to and greatly admire. Her naivety and carefreeness is what attracts the readers. Winterbourne's feelings towards her are greatly understood by myself; a feeling of needing to be needed by someone you need- Daisy's independent spirit never addressed such a need in Winterbourne.

This volume includes "Daisy Miller", "Pandora", "The Patagonia", and "Four Meetings".

Daisy Miller and Other Stories

Erin 

It's ridiculous that this took me nearly a whole month to read considering it's only 4 stories in total, but that just goes to show how much I was putting off reading each one. They're long with multiple chapters, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not what I was signing up for (at least, not at this time). It was also my first foray into the work of Henry James, and I still don't really have an idea about how I feel about him. But I finished it, which is the only thing that matters.

Daisy Miller: 3.5 stars
Pandora: 4.5 stars
The Patagonia: 3.5 stars

(There's a fourth story, but I don't have a rating written down and frankly, I can't be bothered to retrieve it from my bookshelf to jog my memory. Evidently, it was forgettable.)

Bryan Alexander

Somehow I failed to read Daisy Miller until this week. That's probably due to my graduate training in British lit, where we were warned off of the American stuff.

Quickly: this is the story of a failed romance, or of a doomed heroine, depending on how you look at it. Miller is an American traveling through Europe with her mother and younger brother. She meets another American abroad, Winterbourne, our point of view character. She flirts with him; he's fascinated by her. But Daisy acts in Swiss and Italian high society in such a way as to cause a scandal.

This is a terrific intro to James. It's a very short tale. It isn't about the supernatural, unlike Turn of the Screw or Jolly Corner, and I know fantasy still irks some in the US lit world. Daisy Miller gives you a sample of James' style: the long, twisty sentences and the cool, probing analysis of characters. For those who do literary biography there are some interesting connections with the author's life.

Reading it in 2021... this is interesting. So much depends on one's approach to culture and politics. You can see from the preceding that I'm happy to read this formally - I sent my son a series of my favorite sentences and passages, annotated. 

But I also read as a historicist with a left wing tilt, so naturally I view Daisy Miller as a picture of economic inequality. It dwells on the 1%, its mores and dynamics. You see the split between levels within the elite when Winterbourne's aunt decisively duns the Millers as "common," even though they are lavishly rich. There's the classic avoidance of describing physical work that we see in many writers who focus on the rich (think Austen), even when the labor is right there. If the US is continuing down the path of ever-increasing economic inequality, then a 2021 reader might enjoy drawing links to the precious Roman drawing rooms where Daisy flames out.

This is also a story about women and their social constraints. I don't know much about its reception, but I imagine this theme has been important in how people think about it at least as far back as the 1960s. In 2021 I would bet many readers, at least the progressive ones, would see this.

Last note: I tend to see the Gothic in most things. Here I was struck by the looming presence of a notorious/famous castle in the first half, and how that anchors the relationship, signaling Daisy's constraints and her eventual fate. In the second half we build up to a crucial scene that would be right at home in Radcliffe:There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o’clock), Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it recurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches.... Then he passed in, among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade, the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of “Manfred,” but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma. Winterbourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in the center was covered with shadow; it was only as he drew near it that he made it out distinctly.Gorgeous, Goth perfect, and doom-filled. And that's where our point of view character finds Daisy and the breaking point. (That's the second Byron name-check, btw.)

Without risking spoilerizing too much, the story's finale has a special resonance for anyone on Earth during the past year.

Ah, now I want to fill in my mental library with all the James I've missed.

Sabrina D. 

A collection of three tales: "Daisy Miller", "An International Episode" and "Lady Barbarina".

Katrina Wilson

Mina

Lindsy Rice

savannah eden

Andrew John Kinney

Famous novella chronicles a young American girl's willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences. Throughout, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a narrative rich in psychological and social insight.

Daisy Miller

Reviews