"Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of them? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed. In Daisy Miller James dramatized the conflict between old-world manners and nouveau riche tourists, and created his first great portrait of an enigmatic and independent American woman." "This edition contains a chronology, further reading, notes and an introduction by David Lodge discussing the genesis of the tale and James's controversial revision of the text for his New York Edition. Appendices include a note on James's adaptation of his story as a play."--BOOK JACKET.