SOURCE: "Early James: Social Realism and the International Scene," in Henry James: A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1990, pp. 12-35.

In the following excerpt, Hocks maintains that Daisy Miller is truly the story of the making of a Europeanized American.

Finally, the best known and perennial favorite among James's early stories is Daisy Miller (1878), a nouvelle that like "Madame de Mauves" employs third-person narration focused on a viewpoint character of "register." It occupies a special place in his canon for several reasons. First, its notoriety and popularity made James for a brief moment in his career a popular writer: Howells could have a character in The Rise of Silas Lapham refer casually to "Daisy Millerism"; society was even said by Howells to divide into "Daisy Millerites and anti-Daisy Millerites"; and James was frequently identified on the title pages of his later novels as the author of...