What Maisie knew

By Henry James

Subjects: Married people, fiction, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Divorced people, fiction, Girls, Divorce, Classic Literature, Fiction, coming of age, Fiction, Children of divorced parents, Governesses, Remarried people, Large type books, Fiction, family life, general, Family life, fiction, Fiction, general

Description: In the aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, young Maisie Farange finds herself shuttled back and forth between her father and mother, both of them amoral and monstrously self-involved. After her parents find new spouses -- and after the new spouses find themselves drawn to each other, as much for Maisie's sake as their own -- Maisie feels even more misplaced. As she observes the world of adults and their adulteries, and finds herself in the position to decide her own fate, Henry James's rendering of her child's-eye view -- his depiction of what precisely Maisie knows -- draws the reader into this scathing satire of social mores and insightful meditation on familial dependence.