Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller - Henry James

Along with just about everybody little acquainted with Henry James' fiction (I’ve read only Portrait of a Lady), I associate it with difficulty – involved, demanding, too many French words, a lot of work. 

Imagine my surprise when I read Daisy Miller (1878). It’s straightforward, simple, and right up my alley: I’m always willing to read an expatriate story or what they called in James’ time, stories of residence abroad.  The title character is American innocence personified. She cannot conceive that the expat Americans would cut her dead just because she walked the streets of Rome with a man she was not related to, unchaperoned. 

Innocence of the malicious world and ignorance of its censorious ways cause a lot of trouble for Daisy and the narrator, her would-be sweetie Mr. Winterbourne. He is a long-term expat, rich, idle, bored, and empty enough inside to be quite taken by the frank inexperienced and attractive.