SOURCE: A preface to Daisy Miller, Pandora, The Patagonia and Other Tales, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909, pp. v-viii.

In the following excerpt, James discusses the inspiration for his novella Daisy Miller, and the difference between his original, real-life observations of character and the final product of his art.

It was in Rome during the autumn of 1877; a friend then living there but settled now in a South less weighted with appeals and memories happened to mention—which she might perfectly not have done—some simple and uninformed American lady of the previous winter, whose young daughter, a child of nature and of freedom, accompanying her from hotel to hotel, had "picked up" by the wayside, with the best conscience in the world, a good-looking Roman, of vague identity, astonished at his luck, yet (so far as might be, by the pair) all innocently, all serenely exhibited and introduced: this...