This is one of James's middle period novels (1897), and something of an oddity in his oeuvre, being full of dash and broad wit, and largely dialogue driven. It is a heartbreaking tale of a child's passage from innocence to what will most likely be an embittered adulthood. Little Maisie's parents are divorced, and every time she encounters one or the other of them they are either marrying someone new, or in the process of leaving yet another partner. Behind the wonderfully suave surface of the narrative, James's mor hive. This problem is still unsolved.