Research Catalog

What Maisie knew / Henry James ; edited with an introduction and notes by Paul Theroux ; with additional notes by Patricia Crick.

Title
What Maisie knew / Henry James ; edited with an introduction and notes by Paul Theroux ; with additional notes by Patricia Crick.
Author
James, Henry, 1843-1916
Publication
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Penguin Books, c1985.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextRequest in advance PS2116 .W4 1985Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors
Theroux, Paul
Description
274 p.; 19 cm.
Summary
With an Introduction by Pat Righelato, University of Reading The child of parents who divorce, remarry and then embark on adulterous affairs, Maisie Farange survives by her intelligence and spirit. For all its sombre theme of childhood innocence exposed to a corrupted adult world, this novel is one of James's comic masterpieces. The outrageous behaviour of the characters on the seedy fringes of the English upper class is conveyed with wit and relish. The dual perspective of a sophisticated narrator richly appreciative of the absurdities of the adult sexual merry-go-round and the candid vision of Maisie, 'rebounding' from one parent to another like a 'shuttlecock', together create an 'associational magic'. Strangely, unexpectedly, from so much that is tawdry, comes a tale of moral energy and subtlety. James's foresight was in understanding the modernity of his subject, which is even more relevant today in the twenty-first century.
Series Statement
Penguin classics
Uniform Title
Penguin classics.
Subject
  • Children of divorced parents > Fiction
  • Remarried people > Fiction
  • Governesses > Fiction
  • Girls > Fiction
Genre/Form
  • Domestic fiction.
  • Bildungsromans
  • Domestic fiction
  • Fiction
  • Bildungsromans.
  • Fiction.
Bibliography (note)
  • Bibliography: p. 267-274.
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
ISBN
0140432485 (pbk.) :
LCCN
^^^86110186^
OCLC
  • 13702719
  • SCSB-11641726
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library