Daisy Miller (Penguin Classics)

Book Description

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.

Customer Reviews:

ANNIE P. MILLER.......2007-05-24

A few thoughts and considerations on Daisy Miller: A Study.

Though called 'Daisy', her given name is Annie P. Miller in this short novel from 1878.

A fact seldom mentioned is that Daisy Miller was also written as a play, but due to producers in both New York and London rejecting it, it never made it to the stage. Some of Henry James's other writings, however, did get produced as stage plays.

Daisy Miller sold better than Henry James's "previous books". Was fairly well accepted in America but did stir some controversy.

Though Daisy Miller is a novel, the book has its basis in fact: while in Rome in 1877, Henry James heard a story through gossip of an American girl who had "provoked the general disapproval of Anglo-American society in Rome." From this he developed the short novel, Daisy Miller.

Henry James and his brother, William, had visited the Colosseum one night a few years prior to writing Daisy Miller, and Henry. especially struck by the ruins and "sad beauty" of both the Colosseum and Forum, decided to place Daisy in danger within its location.

The fever spoken of in Daisy Miller was "a rather frequent affliction of that time". Years later Henry James's fellow writer and friend, Edith Wharton, wrote a story entitled "Roman Fever". The malaria or 'fever' did actually exist and Americans were very susceptible to its affects.

Much mention of the words "a study" has been written about here. Henry James chose these words to symbolize as in a pencil drawing, or work of art, attempting to offer a portrait of sorts within the written work. Later between 1907 and 1909, when issuing the 24 volume 'New York Edition' revision of The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Henry James removed "A Study" from the reissued Daisy Miller. He felt it no longer held any significant purpose, yet to this date the words "A Study" is to found as part of the title. Rather strange since "the Master" had requested the words "A Study" be removed in 1909!

In a letter, Henry James called Daisy Miller "the little tragedy of light, thin, natural, unsuspecting, creature being sacrificed as it were to a social rumpus that went quite over her head and to which she stood in no measurable relation". In short, she really never got any of it.

As Leon Edel writes of Daisy: "is she a flirt or is she virtuous. Is she innocent or is she hard and cynical?". As Henry James wrote in a later tale concerning another character, "You admire her-you adore her, and secretly you mistrust her."

Finally, William James, Henry's older brother, objected to the ending of Daisy Miller "which seemed to him frivolous." As Henry James had to do with at least one other tale reaching the stage as a play, the ending had to be rewritten as a happy, rather than a sad one. Should Daisy Miller ever reached the stage as James intended, he might have had to rewrite a much different, happier ending to Daisy Miller.

Daisy Miller is not only the shortest of Henry James's works but it probably is the most frequently read and possibly the most popular. It represents a subject close to Henry James's heart as the flood of millions of Americans poured into Europe got on his nerves to such degree that he eventually refused to revisit Italy, and was caused to move from London due noise, crowds, etc., to reside at Lamb House in Rye. So, in Daisy Miller you not only have a tale of moral expression, you also have James's pet peeve dealing with too many people, too much noise, in one place, too close to him.

But the novel has the kaleoscope ability to be many things to many readers and remains very contemporary in its style of writing down to this day. No small accomplishment after passage of approximately 130 years!

Semper Fi.

Excelent Service.......2007-04-02

Unlike other orders in the past that sometimes had very long and drawn out waiting periods, I received this order promptly and was very satisfied with my purchase.

Daisy is the best of America.......2007-02-24

I recommend Daisy Miller for anyone who's grown tired of American arrogance and exceptionalism, particularly for Americans who have lost sight of what's reasonably lovable in our own culture. This brash and irreverent naif, vacationing in Europe, and her affair with the stodgy and non-committal Winterbourne embodies the best of American innocence and idealism. Daisy remains James' best-loved character, perhaps because we need her so much, to remind us that our uninhibited lack of sophistication is at the heart of our American identity.

Peters out.......2007-01-19

I enjoyed most of this novel while I was reading, and I think that the writing is technically proficient. The end was a great disappointment, and left me wondering why I spend the time reading this mercifully short piece. At least I can say that I've read some of Henry James.

My first problem with the book may be the result of not understanding the time period. I am not certain how Americans expected young women to behave, although I understand that their customs were much less restrictive than Europeans. I therefore don't know whether Daisy is rebellious, or reckless, or simply behaving in a manner that she understands to be suitable and many Europeans (American Euro-wannabees) misinterprete. Is the problem just that Winterbourne and Daisy don't understand each other's cultural assumptions, or that he is really reacting to Daisy's personality? Given the reactions of some of the Europeans, is Winterbourne following their codes of behavior more stringently than they do, perhaps fawning on Europeans by an excessive zeal to prove that he is like them? I am therefore at a loss to understand what point Miller is trying to make. Is the issue really the virtues of one set of social customs over another, or is it just the difficulties that arise from misunderstanding? I give this 3 stars rather than 2 because it might have made sense if I were reading it when it was written.

My other problem may be idiosyncratic: THIS IS A SPOILER. I have little sympathy for anyone foolish enough to "die for love", especially a brief romance. Winterbourne and Daisy obviously aren't suited for each other, and the solution is to move on, not become suicidal. I really don't see their incompatibility as a moral issue on either side. If Winterbourne really can't respect Daisy then he does well not to become seriously involved with her. If he is stuffy and priggish, well, that's how he is and he should choose a compatible wife. When it comes to a serious commitment like marriage, it is necessary to acknowledge how one really is, not delude oneself about how one ought to be.

If James' point, as reviewers seem to indicate, is to expose the difference between European and USA manners, the story is not well-constructed, since Daisy's critics are mostly expat Americans; real Europeans are more tolerant of her. The ending seems a bit bizarre. Such misunderstandings have been the basis of comedies of manners or novels of personal angst, but the ending to this novel is too melodramatic and contrived. In Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, Claudia Johnson has some acerbic things to say about the tradition of killing off women disappointed in love. Does James mean to criticize Winterbourne? It would have been more satisfying (and reasonable) if Winterbourne later realized what a fool he had been when he meets up with the happily married, brilliant hostess Daisy Marriedname, famous beauty and wit, perhaps married to a real European who finds her refreshing.

Sad story by early James.......2006-07-14

This is an early short novel by James, where he begins to work out his obsession for comparing the psyche and the ethos of Americans and Europeans of his time. The singular thing about this one is that here the roles are inverted. Whereas in the rest of his work about this subject (which makes up the majority of his whole body of work) James contrasts the American innocence and puritanism with the Europeans' perversity and worldliness, here it is the expatriate Americans and rich Europeans, in Vevey and Rome, who are scandalized by the extroverted, sexually liberated and outrageous behavior of Daisy Miller, a young and beautiful girl whose independent and candid personality is interpreted by "society" as licentious and indecent, up until the sad end.

James' Daisy Miller & Turn of the Screw (Cliffs Notes)

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James' Daisy Miller & Turn of the Screw (Cliffs Notes)
James L. Roberts
Manufacturer: Cliffs Notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822003554

Book Description

Ever giving his attention over to the differences between American innocence and European sophistication, James tells stories of young travelers abroad. Daisy Miller is one of his most famous short tales of a young American girl in Rome. The Turn of the Screw is a classic ghost story about the haunting of the governess of two orphans.

New Essays on Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw (The American Novel)

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New Essays on Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw (The American Novel)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw may be Henry James’s most widely read tales. Certainly, these swiftly moving accounts of failed connections areamong the best examples of his shorter fiction. One represents the international theme that made him famous; the other exemplifies the multiple meanings that make him modern. The introduction to this volume locates his fiction in the context of the family that conditioned his concern with thesexual politics of intimate experience. In the four essays that follow, Kenneth Graham offers a close reading of Daisy with an emphasis on Daisy; Robert Weisbuch examines Winterbourne as a specimen of James’s formidable bachelor type; Millicent Bell places the ghost story governess in the traditions of English fiction and society; David McWhirter then provides a critique of female authority. Deftly summarizing earlier criticism, these essays demonstrate thecontinuing appeal of Henry James in our time.

Daisy Miller and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

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Daisy Miller and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)
Henry James
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192835432

Book Description

The tale of Daisy's irruption into staid European society enjoyed, as did Daisy herself, a succes de scandale; and it has remained one of Jamess most popular short stories. Like the others collected here--'Pandora,' 'The Patagonia,' and 'Four Meetings'-- it describes a confrontation between
different values in a changing world. Is the new independent American girl enchanting in her spontaneity, alarming in her unpredictability, or merely vulnerable in her ignorance of social codes? Hung about with make admirers who seek, uncertainly, to grasp the new phenomenon, Daisy marches on
undiscourageable, to her triumphant--or tragic--destiny.

This volume contains prefaces by Henry James, a chronology of his life, and editor's notes.

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Daisy Miller
Henry James
Manufacturer: Digireads.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1420925172

Book Description

"Daisy Miller" is Henry James's classic story of a young American woman who while traveling in Europe is courted by Frederick Winterbourne. Originally published in The Cornhill Magazine in 1878, "Daisy Miller" is a novel that plays upon the contrast between American and European society that is common to James's work. The title character's youthful innocence is sharply contrasted with the sophistication of European society in this fatefully tragic tale.

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Thumbscrew Is More Like It
The turn of the screw and Daisy Miller
una historia de ambiguedades

The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller
Henry James
Manufacturer: Laurel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Book Description

For lucidity and compactness of style, James's short novels, or novelles, are shining examples of his genius. Few other writings of the century have so captured the American imagination. When Daisy Miller, the tale of the girl from Schenectady, first appeared in 1878, it was an extraordinary success. James had discovered nothing less than "the American girl"--free spirited, flirtatious, an innocent abroad determined to defy European convention even if it meant scandal . . . or tragedy. But the subtle danger lurking beneath the surface in Daisy Miller evolves into a classic tale of terror and obsession in The Turn Of The Screw. "The imagination," Henry James said to Bernard Shaw, "has a life if its own." In this blood-curdling story, that imagination weaves the lives of two children, a governess in love with her employer, and a sprawling country house into a flawless story, still unsurpassed as the prototype of modern horror fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Thumbscrew Is More Like It.......2007-03-27

This Dell paperback performs a nice bit of service by giving you a pair of Henry James' most significant works: "The Turn Of The Screw," the famous ghost-story novella for which he is best-known today; and "Daisy Miller," another novella that was James' most successful in his lifetime.

I only wish I had enjoyed them. James' style, as I found it, tends to be rather opaque, high-toned, and enervated; smothered in adjectives and lacking in verbs. Fiction-writing from his period can be distant and formal-sounding, but James' feels lost to time in a way others like Conrad and Twain are not.

I probably had the wrong mindset approaching "Turn Of The Screw." This is a famous horror story, read by middle-schoolers. How much of a chore would it be?

Plenty. James frames his story by introducing us to a group of high-toned characters, none of whom we will see again as one of them tells about a story "beyond everything. Nothing I know touches it...for dreadfulness!"

I found this to be true, actually, though not the way James intended. After these few pages of meandering exposition, we meet an unnamed woman hired to be a governess of two cute little kids residing in a pretty English country manor. Various things start to happen to convince the woman that the children are communing with a pair of nasty specters.

Nice idea, but James presents it, intentionally or otherwise, so vaguely that the story loses any real foreboding or suspense. When ghosts appear, they stand on parapets or stare through windows, eyes haunting but the rest of them pretty much inert. Not even the shake of a chain. You never really know anyone in the story; not the kids, cardboard cuties who seem to drift though the narrative chirping noxious Edwardian pleasantries; and not the governess, who sticks by her creepy assignment because she has fallen in love with their uncle, a rich weirdo who requires no matter what happens to the tykes, he never be bothered about them. I guess a good man was hard to find back then.

The end of the book loses a lot of people, but in such a way to make it a favorite of critics. Did the story really happen as presented, or did the governess flip? It's easier to go on about subtext this way when there's so little to the actual text.

"Daisy Miller" is a better tale, crisper and more involving. It's about social mores, and how a young American woman in Europe falls afoul of them. Actually, I thought the story was about a young man who meets an enchanting but impossible flirt, and the way it distends his view of himself and the world around him. But it turns out I was wrong, according to the literary criticism I found online. It's about the girl, and she's not a minx the way I thought, but a truehearted innocent who suffers from the snobby Continentals.

Man, I'm really glad they didn't stick me with this in middle school. "Daisy Miller" left me confused again, and flat, but I did enjoy it until I discovered I was reading a whole different story from what the author wrote. Darn you James, you narrative trickster you!

The turn of the screw and Daisy Miller.......2002-02-15

Jennifer, period 3

This is a review on The turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller by
Henry James. The turn of the Screw is a haunting ghost story of this woman that is a governess and moves into an old English mansion to care for two children Miles, and Flora. The governess start seeing things and she realizes that these people are not human but ghosts and she thinks that they are going to possess the children. This short novel is a horrifying classic ghost story that was actually not bad. The short novel of Daisy Miller is a tale of a governess on vacation with her family in Italy and she falls in deeply in love with her employer. This is a sad love story that Henry makes you use your imagination on. She is swept off her feet by her employer, Frederick Forsyth. But his suspicions about her friendship with an Italian man lead him, and the rest of society, to abandon her. Only after she is dead that he realizes her actions were spontaneous and out of generosity. That is my review on these short novels by Henry James.

una historia de ambiguedades.......2000-05-15

esta obra es una novela de ambiguedades, no como otras novelas de henry james que son de ritmo lento y hasta medio aburridas, esta obra es rapida y su brevedad la hace mas deliciosa. al final quedamos con las dudas sobre lo que paso en la casa con los ninos y la maestra. solo nos queda imaginarnos que paso al final y mas alla... muy buena. LUIS MENDEZ

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Daisy Miller
Henry James and Bobbie Frohman
Manufacturer: Alcazar AudioWorks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

Product Description

Henry James' signature theme---the American abroad---centers on a chatterbox, provincial not to say ignorant daughter of a wealthy Schenectady industrialist, as she travels through Europe with her doting, vapid mother---and rambunctious young brother---who meets up with one Mr. Winterbourne, another ex-patriate---with whom she flirts, among others---before a sad ending. Reader: Bobbie Frohman: Music: David Thorn: 3 CDs: Unabridged: About 2 hours. 20 min playing time: Tracked for easy bookmarking

Daisy Miller and Washington Square (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

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Daisy Miller and Washington Square (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)
Henry James
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1593081057

Book Description

Strikingly modern in its psychological insight, social observation and stylistic innovation, Henry James’s fiction continues to attract and intrigue readers a century after its initial appearance. This volume offers two of his most popular and critically admired novellas: Daisy Miller and Washington Square.

In Daisy Miller, James paints a vivid portrait of a vibrant young American girl visiting Europe for the first time. Lovely, flirtatious, eager for experience, Daisy meets a wealthy American, Mr. Winterbourne, and a penniless but passionate Italian. Her complex encounters with them and others allow James to explore one of his favorite themes, the effect of Americans and Europeans on each other.

Washington Square’s Catherine Sloper is Daisy Miller’s opposite. Neither pretty nor charming, she lives with her wealthy, widowed, tyrannical father, Dr. Austin Sloper, who can barely conceal his disdain for his shy, awkward daughter. When a handsome suitor, Morris Townsend, comes calling, Catherine’s father refuses to believe he is anything other than a heartless fortune hunter and sets out to destroy her romance.

James's Daisy Miller: The story, the play, the critics (Scribner research anthologies)

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A Good Sample of Traditional Scholarship

James's Daisy Miller: The story, the play, the critics (Scribner research anthologies)
William T Stafford
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

A Good Sample of Traditional Scholarship.......2006-01-03

Although literary studies have gone through significant changes in recent years, it is always a good idea to look back and re-view how old scholarship has confronted canonical texts in a different context and time. This book is a good sample of such works.

Approaches to Teaching Henry James's Daisy Miller and the Turn of the Screw (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, Vol. 86)

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Approaches to Teaching Henry James's Daisy Miller and the Turn of the Screw (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, Vol. 86)

Manufacturer: Modern Language Association of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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