"Cliff Notes - Daisy Miller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

would soon choose this exact setting for the climax of Daisy
Miller.

On another visit to Rome, James discovered the specific
situation that would suggest his tale. A friend told a very
sketchy anecdote about an "uninformed" American girl who had
picked up a very handsome Italian man with no social standing.
The well-meaning girl had introduced her friend to the very
selective American society in Rome, by whose standards he was
considered "low life." They promptly showed their disapproval by
snubbing the innocent girl.

In 1876, Daisy Miller: A Study was published in England's
Cornhill Magazine to instant success. Initially rejected by an
American publisher, the story achieved such popularity in
England that it was quickly printed in the United States without
James's authorization. By the time James could have it
legitimately published in the U.S., most people had read the
pirated edition. No work of his, except for The Turn of the
Screw, would ever equal Daisy Miller in popularity. But his
earnings from the sale of Daisy Miller in the United States
amounted to only about two hundred dollars.

Daisy Miller was a cultural phenomenon not unlike a hit movie or
number one song today. Impulsive American girls traveling in
Europe were suddenly referred to as "Daisy Millers." There were
even "Daisy Miller" hats in the stores. A writer named Virginia
W. Johnson published An English Daisy Miller, with an English
girl as its heroine.

Daisy's fame would follow Henry James throughout his life,
occasionally to his chagrin. In the 1880s he followed Daisy
with a string of fine novels--including one, The Portrait of a
Lady (1881) that in many ways expands and deepens the themes and
characters of Daisy Miller--but none of them attracted the
reading audience of his simpler, earlier tale.

In the early 1890s James made several disastrous attempts to
write plays. Yet he was too much the disciplined professional
to abandon writing, or even remain very discouraged for long.
By the late 1890s he was again producing fine work, including
the novels The Spoils of Poynton (1896) and What Maisie Knew
(1897) and the ghostly tale, The Turn of the Screw (1898).

When Henry James was 12, Frank Leslie's New York Journal
serialized a story entitled, "Temptation"--a tale of evil
populated by governesses; housekeepers; valets; a brother and
sister victimized by "horrors"; and by a villain named Peter
Quin and his sidekick, Miles. Over 40 years later, James
serialized his own tale of evil, replete with governesses; a