SOURCE: "Daisy," in Henry James: The Conquest of London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1962, pp. 302-18.

In the following excerpt, Edel discusses public reaction to Daisy Miller.

"My London life flows evenly along, making, I think, in various ways more and more of a Londoner of me," Henry wrote to William at the end of January 1878. "If I keep along here patiently for a certain time I rather think I shall become a (sufficiently) great man. I have got back to work with great zest after my autumnal loafings, and mean to do some this year which will make a mark. I am, as you suppose, weary of writing articles about places, and mere potboilers of all kinds; but shall probably, after the next six months, be able to forswear it altogether, and give myself up seriously to 'creative' writing. Then, and not till then, my real career will...