Literary Significance and Criticism
What Maisie Knew has attained a fairly strong critical position in the Jamesian canon. Edmund Wilson was one of many critics who admired both the book's technical proficiency and its judgment of a negligent and damaged society. When Wilson recommended What Maisie Knew to Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita, Nabokov thought the book was terrible. F.R. Leavis, on the other hand, declared the book to be "perfection.". The psychoanalytic critic Neil Hertz has argued for a parellel between James' narrative voice and the problem of transference in Freud's Dora case.
The way James convincingly follows the growth of Maisie's consciousness from its first faint glimmerings of awareness to its final comprehensive understanding of her situation has usually earned great respect. Though a lifelong bachelor, James was excellent at portraying children in tales like Turn of the Screw; this book shows his ability to enter into the trials, fears, and joys of a child's existence.
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