Daisy Miller: A Dark Comedy of Manners

Twayne's Masterwork Studies #35

by Daniel Mark Fogel

Originally published in The Cornhill Magazine in 1878 and in book form in 1879, Daisy Miller brought Henry James his first widespread commercial and critical success. The young Daisy Miller, an American on holiday with her mother on the shores of Switzerland's Lac Leman, is one of James's most vivid and tragic characters. Daisy's friendship with an American gentleman, Mr. Winterbourne, and her subsequent infatuation with a passionate but impoverished Italian bring to life the great Jamesian themes of Americans abroad, innocence versus experience, and the grip of fate.

118 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1989

Reviews

[Michael Neno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike the routine study guide for Henry James' Daisy Miller I was expecting, Daniel Mark Fogels' Daisy Miller: A Dark Comedy of Manners is packed with insights and well-researched observations. I especially appreciated Fogels' thoughts on the novella's point of view(s) and the excerpts from travel guide books of the 19th century "selling" the various locales used in the work. It was interesting to discover that James himself used such guidebooks in his own initial European tours. This is, all in all, a well-rounded guide to Daisy Miller and I'm interested in reading the Twayne guide to The Portrait
of a Lady after I've read that novel.

[R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read half way through- dnf