Daisy Miller
Author: Henry James
ISBN: 9780140432626
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (United Kingdom) 1986
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.
This book is ranked number 28 in the Global Reads list
Recommended by:
Julian Fellowes
There are lots of books that have made me curious to see places I have never visited, but I suppose one of the clearest revelations I can remember was when I read Daisy Miller, written by Henry James in 1878. It is a curious, poignant, almost whimsical tale of a young girl who comes to Europe full of energy and life, only to be drained of both. The double-edged sword of European culture, on the one hand invigorating and inspiring, on the other oppressive, class-ridden and overbearing, was a theme that James would later rework into what was possibly his greatest novel, Portrait of a Lady, which was published three years later in 1881...At all events, it left me with the absolute conviction that, whatever else might happen, I had to see Rome...I accordingly re-read he story and followed every one of Daisy’s footsteps as she made her way through the Eternal City. In the process, I had one of the most inspiring weeks of my life.
