Daisy Miller: A Study

About the book

Winterbourne meets Daisy Miller in Switzerland and tries to decide what her manner signifies. Her ease in conversation and willingness to act without the expected forms of supervision fascinate him while troubling the expatriate society whose judgments he partly shares. Their later encounters in Rome make the consequences of interpretation more serious. James keeps attention close to Winterbourne's attempts to understand Daisy, leaving readers to notice the assumptions and hesitations shaping that effort. The novella's brevity makes small gestures and reported opinions carry considerable weight. Its drama lies in the distance between observing conduct and knowing a person, especially when a community's confidence in its own standards encourages it to treat uncertainty as evidence against someone who does not recognise those standards as binding.

• Innocence and convention
• Social judgment
• Cultural encounter

Why read it

For a concise James study in which a character's uncertainty reveals as much about the observer as about the person being observed.

Novella · English text