I think I'm old enough to be able to admit that I hadn't read this before now, though I should have when I was working on late James and aestheticism.

What is there to say? I continue to like late James better, but it's an amazing novel in its un-Jamesian-ness. In the microgenre of James-representing-lower-class-subjectivity, "In the Cage" is more appealing, kinder to its protagonist--perhaps simply because she's female. But also I don't think this novel's aestheticism sublates its snobbery in the way that later James does more reliably. More simply, Hyacinth is the wrong kind of implausible, and the melodrama, though suitable in a way, is not what I go to James for.

This Penguin Classics edition has truly wonderful notes by Patricia Crick. Very terse and helpful explanations are suddenly interrupted by a personal reminiscence of her going to a show in her childhood like one that Hyacinth and Millicent go to.