What Maisie Knew

Henry James · 1897 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Victorian

A divorce court splits a small girl between two handsome, spiteful parents six months at a time, and each uses her to carry insults to the other. Both remarry, the stepfather and stepmother take up with each other, and Maisie is passed among four adults and a devoted, ridiculous governess while understanding more of it every year. James holds the book to what a child can register, the technical experiment his late manner is built on.

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