What Maisie Knew

When her parents divorce bitterly, the little girl Maisie Farange is passed between them, six months with each, and each uses her to carry messages of hatred to the other. Both parents remarry and take lovers, and Maisie, with her innocent, observant eyes, watches the adults around her lie, quarrel and betray one another, until she must make a choice of her own about where, and with whom, she will live.

Henry James published the novel in 1897, telling it through the point of view of a child who sees more than she understands, and it is one of his most daring experiments in narration. Read James's Washington Square and The Turn of the Screw, and see his life.

Henry James (1843–1916) was born in New York, the brother of the philosopher William James, and was educated in Europe and America. In 1876 he settled in London, and later in the small town of Rye, and spent his life writing about Americans in Europe and the clash of innocence and experience.

In some twenty novels and more than a hundred stories, including The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw, he developed a subtle, psychological style that influenced modern fiction. He became a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death.