What Maisie Knew

Infobox Book |
name = What Maisie Knew
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover of "What Maisie Knew"
author = Henry James
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = William Heinemann, London
Herbert S. Stone, Chicago
release_date = September 17, 1897 (Heinemann)
October 16, 1897 (Stone)
media_type = Print (Serialized)
pages = 304 pp (Heinemann)
470 pp (Stone)
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"What Maisie Knew" is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in the "Chap Book" and (revised and abridged) in the "New Review" in 1897 and then as a book later in the same year. The story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents, "What Maisie Knew" has great contemporary relevance as an unflinching account of a wildly dysfunctional family. The book is also a masterly technical achievement by James, as it follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity.

Plot summary

When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess, the frumpy, more than a little ridiculous, but devoted Mrs. Wix.

Both Ida and Beale soon busy themselves with other lovers besides their spouses. In return those spouses — Sir Claude and the new Mrs. Beale — begin an affair. Maisie's parents essentially abandon her in heartbreaking scenes, and she becomes largely the responsibility of Sir Claude. Eventually, Maisie must decide if she wants to remain with Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale. In the book's long final section set in France, the now teenaged Maisie maturely decides that the relationship of her new "parents" might well end as badly as that of her biological parents. She leaves them and goes to stay with Mrs. Wix, her most reliable adult guardian.

Major themes

It's not surprising from the book's title that knowledge and education form a major theme in this bittersweet tale of Maisie's up-bringing. Her keen observation of the irresponsible behavior of almost all the adults she lives with eventually persuades her to rely on her most devoted friend, Mrs. Wix, even though the frumpy governess is by far the least superficially attractive adult in her life.

The novel is also a thoroughgoing condemnation of parents and guardians abandoning their responsibilities towards their children. James saw English society as becoming more corrupt and decadent, and "What Maisie Knew" is one of his harshest indictments of those who can't be bothered to live reasonably responsible lives.

It might seem that such a book would become almost unbearably grim. But James leavens the sorry doings with a generous dose of admittedly dark humor. For instance, the dumpy Mrs. Wix falls victim to an unintentionally hilarious infatuation with the handsome Sir Claude. And James often plays Maisie's lightweight father for laughs, as when he gets involved with a woman he tells Maisie is an American "countess."

Literary significance & criticism

"What Maisie Knew" has attained a fairly strong critical position in the Jamesian canon. Edmund Wilson was one of many critics who admired both the book's technical proficiency and its judgment of a negligent and damaged society. (Not everybody is a fan. When Wilson recommended "What Maisie Knew" to Vladimir Nabokov, the author of "Lolita" — a much different novel about a child's "development" — thought the book was terrible. F.R. Leavis, on the other hand, declared the book to be "perfect".)

The way James convincingly follows the growth of Maisie's consciousness from its first faint glimmerings of awareness to its final comprehensive understanding of her situation has usually earned great respect. Though a lifelong bachelor, James was good with children and this book shows his ability to enter into the trials, fears and joys of a child's existence.

References

* "The Novels of Henry James" by Edward Wagenknecht (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983) ISBN 0-8044-2959-6
* "The Novels of Henry James" by Oscar Cargill (New York: Macmillan Co., 1961)
* "Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana" by Thomas L. Jeffers (New York: Palgrave, 2005), p. 89-118 ISBN 1-4039-6607-9

External links

* [http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathawar/maisie1.html "What Maisie Knew" including the author's preface] (New York Edition 1908)
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7118 "What Maisie Knew"] , available freely at Project Gutenberg
* [http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=188&section=notes Note on the various texts of "What Maisie Knew"] at the Library of America web site