First published in book form in 1879, Daisy Miller brought Henry James his first widespread commercial and critical success. Daisy Miller, a young woman from Schenectady, New York, who, traveling in Europe, runs into conflict with the socially pompous American migrant community in Rome, is one of James’s most vivid and tragic characters, a great depiction of the dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces. When Frederick, an American expatriate traveling in Europe, meets the newly rich Miller family from New York, he is charmed by the daughter, Daisy, and her inexplicable combination of boldness and innocence. Daisy’s friendship with an American gentleman, Mr. Winterbourne, and her subsequent infatuation with a sauve but impoverished Italian bring to life the great Jamesian themes of Americans abroad.
Throughout the narrative, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a tale rich in psychological and social insight. Daisy Miller is an ideal introduction to the work of one of America’s greatest writers of fiction.
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