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Daisy Miller (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by Henry James (Author), David Lodge (Editor, Introduction), Philip Horne (Editor)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of those conventions? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed. In "Daisy Miller" James created his first great portrait of the enigmatic and dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces.

About the Author
Henry James was born in 1843 in Washington Place, New York, of Scottish and Irish ancestry. In addition to many short stories, plays, books of criticism, autobiography and travel, he wrote some twenty novels, the first published being Roderick Hudson (1875). They include The Europeans, Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima, The Tragic Muse, The Spoils of Poynton, The Awkward Age, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl. Born in South London on 28 January 1935, Professor David Lodge is Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught from 1960 until 1987, when he retired to write full-time. Changing Places (1975), was Lodge's first book in a trilogy of campus novels with Small World (1984), and Nice Work (1988). His new novel, Author, Author: A Novel (2004), opens in December 1915 with the dying Henry James, and journeys back to the 1880s to explore James's 'middle years'. David Lodge lives in Birmingham. Philip Horne is Professor of English at University College London.

Product Details

Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics (December 18, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0141441348
ISBN-13: 978-0141441344
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,916 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#87 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > 19th Century

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Save Henry James for Later in Life, January 16, 2009

By	James Chester "cbjames" (Vallejo, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I only recently started reading Henry James. I could not stand him in graduate school, when I was in my 20's, and never finished him when he was assigned, but twenty years on, I find much to enjoy in his work. I suspect he may be someone you have to grow into; I don't think he has much to say to the young; one needs more life experience before he can be appreciated. But why shouldn't living long come with a few rewards?

Daisy Miller may be a good case in point. The main character, Mr. Winterbourne, meets young Miss Miller on one of those protracted vacations wealthy people in 19th century novels so often take. Mr. Winterbourne is at once taken in by Daisy's beauty and by her vivacity; she has a great lust for life and no self-conscienceness to hinder her. Daisy unknowingly breaks all the rules of her society in her search for experience. She does not know what she is doing, but she does not seem to mind.

The two separate and then meet up again in Rome where Mr. Winterbourne finds Daisy engaged in an affair of sorts with a gold-digging Italian man. Daisy has so offended society by this time that none of the other Americans abroad will have anything to do with her or her family. Mr. Winterbourne tries to get her to change her ways, to convince her that she should drop the Italian and rejoin the more proper society of her peers, but she refuses. She will have her way whether or not society approves.

A friend of mine once told me that Henry James ends his stories with an almost throw-away line or two that seems to put everything that went on up to then in a completely new light. That is the case with Daisy Miller, so though I really want to talk about the ending, I won't spoil it. I will say that I think it also supports my belief that one should wait before reading Henry James. Had I read this "throwaway" ending when I was 20, I would have been outraged at the hypocrasy Mr. Winterbourne displays. Now, I understand why he would do what he does, though it goes against what he has said up to then.

My favorite character in Daisy Miller, my favorite in Henry James so far, is Mr. Winterbourne's aunt, Mrs. Costello. Here is her opinion of the Miller family:

"They are hopelessly vulgar," said Mrs. Costello. "Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough."

I think if I had read a line like that when I was 20 I would have come to at least dislike Mrs. Costello and possibly Henry James. Now, even though I realize she would certainly have nothing to do with me, I find her very funny. I've certainly moved away from Daisy's age towards Mrs. Costello's age and that has added to my understanding and appreciation of Henry James. Though I spend much of my time reading Young Adult fiction, I'm pleased to find something written with an older audience in mind. If you are under 35 and haven't read Henry James yet, I recommend waiting. Save a few treats for yourself later in life. You won't regret it. It's nice to discover something new, especially when it is also something old.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "They are very common...They are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not - not accepting." , October 27, 2008

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

One of Henry James's earliest novellas, Daisy Miller (1878) follows the activities of a wealthy, and brashly confident, young American woman as she audaciously challenges European society in Vevey, Switzerland, and in Rome, having fun, doing what pleases her, leaving staid European society gasping in her wake. Daisy Miller, whose father is in the US and whose mother is her ineffectual "chaperone," is a free spirit in a society bound by unstated but rigid "rules," determined to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with whomever she chooses.

Frederick Winterbourne, an expatriate who has spent most of his life in Geneva, is attracted to Daisy, but his bonds with his stuffy aunt, Mrs. Cosgrove, and her friend, Mrs. Walker, both of whom govern expatriate society in Europe, leave him ill-equipped to deal with Daisy's flouting of society's conventions. When she is obviously attracted to Mr. Giovanelli, a singer/musician of no social standing, and when she is seen with him publicly in places that a "nice" girl would not grace at night, her reputation is threatened, and anyone associated with her is tainted. Winterbourne is uncertain how to protect her, while, not incidentally, protecting his own reputation.

Developing his most famous theme, James considers the conflicts between American and European values and the naivete of the Americans and their spontaneity as it contrasts with the old world formality of the Europeans. Daisy, who is often foolishly na�ve, is also seen as brash and ego-centric, a young woman whose destiny cannot be avoided (or even predicted) because of the strength of her own, often wrong, willfulness.

James focuses on two characters here--both Daisy and Winterbourne--and though the story is told from Winterbourne's point of view, Daisy is often the more vibrant of the two characters. Though she is shallow and assertive, he is hidebound by convention, leaving both characters with limits in terms of reader identification. When a night-time dalliance leads to serious consequences for Daisy, the reader is neither surprised nor shocked.

Filled with trenchant observations about Americans and their differences from Europeans, the novel incorporates significant symbols--the Coliseum (associated with innocent Christian martyrs), malaria (to which Americans are particularly susceptible), Randolph (Daisy's rude and undisciplined 10-year-old brother, the ugliest of Americans), and Mrs. Cosgrove and Mrs. Walker (converts to the European way of life). Carefully observed and critical of American naivete, Daisy Miller is the "preface" to Portrait of a Lady and many of James's more fully developed novels. Mary Whipple

The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics)
The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction (Bantam Classics)
The Golden Bowl (Oxford World's Classics)
The Wings of the Dove (Penguin Classics)The Ambassadors

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