What Maisie Knew

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 that year. It tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible parents. The book follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity.

She started as a maid in an aristocratic London household; studied her way into prestigious Girton College at Cambridge; then became a front-line nurse in World War I. There she found - and lost - an important part of herself. Now she has set up on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful. And Fate brings her a case that will force her to confront the ghost that has haunted her for over ten years. A welcome addition to the sleuthing scene' - Elizabeth George, author of I, Richard 'A rare treat for mystery fans' - Charles Todd'

When Maisie is struck by lightning, her face is partially destroyed. She's lucky enough to get a face transplant, but how do you live your life when you can't even recognize yourself any more? She was a runner, a girlfriend, a good student ... a normal girl. Now, after a single freak accident, all that has changed. As Maisie discovers how much her looks did and didn't shape her relationship to the world, she has to redefine her own identity, and figure out what 'lucky' really means.

Previously published as part of The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology. Praise for WHAT MAISIE KNEW and the THE NEW DEAD: "Provocative, haunting, and genuinely unsettling... David Liss's novelette What Maisie Knew is a stunning and gruesome meditation on the banality of capitalism and evil... This powerful anthology [THE NEW DEAD] shines a bright and unflinching light on the fears of death, decay, and loss that underpin America's longstanding obsession with the undead." - Publishers Weekly *Starred Review*

As an American author who chose to live in Europe, Henry James frequentlywrote about cultural differences between the Old and New World. Theplight of bewildered Americans adrift on a sea of European sophisticationbecame a regular theme in his fiction.This collection of twenty-four papers from some of the world's leadingJames scholars offers a comprehensive picture of the author's crossculturalaesthetics. It provides detailed analyses of James's perception ofEurope - of its people and places, its history and culture, its artists andthinkers, its aesthetics and its ethics - which ultimately lead to a profoundreevaluation of his writing.With in-depth analysis of his works of fiction, his autobiographical andpersonal writings, and his critical works, the collection is a major contribution to current thinking about James, transtextuality and cultural appropriation.

In David Lodge's last novel, Thinks... the novelist Henry James was invisibly present in quotation and allusion. In Author, Author he is centre stage, sometimes literally. The story begins in December 1915, with the dying author surrounded by his relatives and servants, most of whom have private anxieties of their own, then loops back to the 1880s, to chart the course of Henry's 'middle years', focusing particularly on his friendship with the genial Punch artist and illustrator, George Du Maurier, and his intimate but chaste relationship with the American writer Constance Fenimore Woolson. By the end of the decade Henry is seriously worried by the failure of his books to 'sell', and decides to try and achieve fame and fortune as a playwright, at the same time that George Du Maurier, whose sight is failing, diversifies into writing novels. The consequences, for both men, are surprising, ironic, comic and tragic by turns, reaching a climax in the years 1894-5. As Du Maurier's Trilby, to the bewilderment of its author himself, becomes the bestseller of the century, Henry anxiously awaits the first night of his make-or-break play, Guy Domville ... Thronged with vividly drawn characters, some of them with famous names, others recovered from obscurity, Author, Author presents a fascinating panorama of literary and theatrical life in late Victorian England, which in many ways foreshadowed today's cultural mix of art, commerce and publicity. But it is essentially a novel about authorship - about the obsessions, hopes, dreams, triumphs and disappointments, of those who live by the pen - with, at its centre, an exquisite characterisation of one writer, rendered with remarkable empathy.