What Maisie Knew - Portrait of a Child

What Maisie Knew - Portrait of a Child After his disastrous shot at playwriting, which occupied him for a few years, Henry James finally returned to what he knew best: writing novels. What Maisie Knew (1897) is perhaps the finest of James' middle period books, a relatively simple story about a young girl of seven or eight who endures her parents' acrimonious divorce and a lot else besides. There are said to be James cultists who …

…been ruined by her childhood, I think that, in the end, she will be just fine. Unlike Olive Chancellor, who reached self-actualization through the basest martyrdom, Maisie suffers a trial by fire and comes through it ready for anything. She neutralizes James' worst faults: his bitchy sarcasms, his deliberate stylistic difficulties, and his ultimate coldness. She stirred his finest impulses and, in return, he made her the center of one of his very best novels.