The Prodigies

Plot summary

Characters

• Mrs Harriet Mackenzie, a pianist.
• Mr Nelson Mackenzie, a doctor. He plays the cornet.
• Elsie, the Mackenzies's daughter.
• Billy, the Mackenzies's son.
• Kate Massey, a pushy mother.
• Mr Massey, a businessman, Kate's husband.
• Hermann, the Masseys's son.
• Ad, the Masseys's daughter.
• Madame Marchesi, a singing teacher in Paris.
• John Hamilton, a boy with a skate.
• Mollie Hamilton, John's sister.

  Allusions to other works

• Literature is mentioned with Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Pegasus, Alphonse Daudet, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Johann David Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson, and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
• Music is mentioned with Teodor Leszetycki, Charles Gounod, Schubert, Jean de Reszke, Adelina Patti, Italo Campanini, Richard Wagner, Sybil Sanderson, and Hector Berlioz's La damnation de Faust.

  Literary significance and criticism

• "The Prodigies" has been deemed to be Jamesian.