Critical Evaluation
Critics have almost unanimously agreed with James' disowning of Watch and Ward as his first novel in favor of the infinitely more substantial and impressive Roderick Hudson. While Nora gets kudos as a pleasant enough ingénue, the other characters are forgettable and the plot is too often silly.
James did revise Watch and Ward for book publication in 1878, so he wasn't completely ashamed of it at that point in his career. But he dropped the novel from his 1883 collective edition and soon seemed to want to forget about it completely.
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