[Volpe is an American author and educator. In the following essay, he refutes the tradition that Daisy Miller was poorly received by critics, citing instead the social uproar it created and its effect of perturbing readers, rather than critics, nationwide.]

At the time of its publication Henry James's Daisy Miller, according to literary tradition, was not well received by the American critics. The author is supposed to have been reviled by his countrymen for his unflattering portrait of the American girl. Modern scholars have wondered why there should have been such a reaction to what is really a sympathetic portrayal of Daisy, but no one, in print at least, has questioned the validity of the tradition. Richard Foley, in his study of the reception given to James's works in American periodicals, noted that though "the magazines reported … Daisy Miller had been objected to on the grounds that it maligned the American young lady, it was well received by those [magazines] examined." The discrepancy between the reports by the magazine writers and their own favorable comments has been generally ignored, probably because several months after the appearance of Daisy Miller a brief discussion of its reception (attributed to William Dean Howells) in the "Contributors Club" of the Atlantic Monthly included quotations from "some critical experts" who regarded the tale as "servilely snobbish" and "brutally unpatriotic."

Who these "critical experts" were and in what publications they made such statements is a mystery. A search through the literary periodicals of the period has revealed no statement about the novel that even approximates the tone of these quotations. On the contrary, the tale was very well received. No critic questioned James's patriotism or accused him of snobbishness. Only one reviewer wondered if Daisy had been intended to represent the typical American girl:

If the anomalous mother and daughter who are the chief figures in Mr. James's Daisy Miller were seriously presented by him as typical representatives of our country-women—while admitting that such a mother and daughter are as much within the range of possibility as the Siamese twins and has as equitable a title to be set up as types—we should affirm that they have not enough of general or special resemblance to any really existent class to lend probability to caricature. It is obvious, however, that Mr. James had no such purpose in this brilliant and graceful trifle.

No writer in an American periodical provided the "Contributor Club" commentator with his quotations, nor did the reviewers in the New York or Boston newspapers. The only New York journal that printed a full-length review of the novel was the New York Times, and that was laudatory. In Boston, where the novel was first published, it produced almost no reaction in the daily or weekly newspapers. The Boston Evening Transcript usually devoted a full column or two to book reviews; on the day James's tale was listed under "Books Received" there were reviews of several other works mentioned, including a Grocer's manual, a Latin grammar and a book on ornithology. The Boston Post on November 11,1879 offered the most elaborate review:

Daisy Miller is a bright little story, an affaire du coeur. The scene of the story is laid in Switzerland—in Vevey, in fact, one of the most charming retreats that skirt the shore of Loch Leman. It is an entertaining little tale of what befell two hearts in that far-off country, and one may while away a half hour with pleasure and no harm done.

It is possible that in the "Contributor's Club" passage Howells was quoting oral criticism; the following month, however, the same column made specific reference to published criticism:

To read the silly criticisms which have been printed, and the far sillier ones which are every day uttered … would almost convince us that we are as provincial as ever in our sensitiveness to foreign opinion. It is actually regarded as a species of unpardonable incivism for Mr. James, because he lives in London, to describe an underbred American family …

There is no ambiguity in these lines: James has been attacked by American critics; but by whom and in what publication, Howells did not say. None of the other magazine writers who corroborate the statement is specific either. In the "Our Monthly Gossip" column of Lippincott's Magazine (October, 1879), the writer maintains that two novels "The Story of Avis and Daisy Miller are in much greater demand [by magazine editors] in consequence of the severity of a few reviewers in dealing with them." The Nation's critic, reviewing the book a month after publication, wrote: "Certainly no American book of its size has been so much read and so much discussed, as far as our memory runs back." And the critic in the Century declared that the novel was

… much criticised in the United States for the uncomplimentary character of its heroine … The character is denounced as exaggerated in the extreme, and only applicable to Americans in Europe who are the scandal and terror of their fellow-travelers.

Yet neither the Nation nor the Century critic mentions printed criticism. Howells, in a letter to James Russell Lowell on June 22, 1879, describes the reaction to the novel as a "vast discussion in which nobody felt very deeply, and everybody talked very loudly. The thing went so far that society almost divided itself in Daisy Millerites and anti-Daisy Millerites." It is a social rather than a critical controversy that Howells presents in this letter. Had there been so vigorous a literary attack upon James as the "Contributor's Club" passages indicate, surely there would have been some mention of it in the literary gossip sections of the periodicals. But neither the Literary World with its "Literary Table Talk" nor the Outlook with its "Literary Notes" referred to any controversy over Daisy Miller.

The New York and Boston newspapers, too, failed to make any reference to an attack upon James or his novel. The New York papers reflected instead a developing popular interest in the novelist. He was spoken of frequently in the "personal" and "literature" columns during the first few months of 1879, and on June 4 of that year the New York Times carried on its editorial page a discussion of the international social problem which mentioned the resentment aroused by Daisy Miller: "There are many ladies in and around New York to-day who feel very indignant with Mr. James for his portrait of Daisy Miller, and declare that it is shameful to give foreigners so untrue a portrait of an American girl."

The evidence, therefore, is that Daisy Miller perturbed many readers, particularly women, but not the critics. In comparison to the manner in which James's biography of Hawthorne was received, the reception of the story was excellent. In 1880, sparked by George Lathrop's denunciation, a number of American authors accused James of being unpatriotic; and many editorial writers pounced upon him for his "unAmerican" attitude. It is possible that the receptions given these two works have, over the years become confused.

In his letter to Lowell, Howells declared that he was pleased with the furor Daisy Miller had created, because in "making James so thoroughly known, it would call attention in a wide degree to the beautiful work he has been doing so long for very few readers and still fewer lovers." He may have been primed for trouble long before the tale's publication in book form. In his preface to the novel in the New York edition, James stated that he had originally submitted the story to a Philadelphia magazine (Lippincott's) the editor of which (John Foster Kirk) had promptly returned it without comment. Puzzled, he appealed to a friend "for light, giving him the thing to read." The friend "declared that it could only have passed with the Philadelphia critic for 'an outrage on American girlhood.'" There is nothing to prove that Howells was that friend, but if he was, or even if he had been informed by James of the incident, he would have been ready to defend the novel against expected attacks.

There is another possible solution to the mystery: that a midwestern or western newspaper has provided Howells with the quotations he used. But even if such a review were discovered, the tradition that Daisy Miller received a poor critical reception in the United States is obviously untrue.