The melodramatic doings in Watch and Ward probably caused James some embarrassment in later years, and it's easy to see why he disowned the book and spoke of Roderick Hudson as his first novel.

Nora's development into the beautiful swan from the ugly duckling is told rather than shown, and Fenton is a stock villain of the most routine kind.

Still, hints of the master-to-be are apparent from the well-described scenes of New York low life and the charm that Nora eventually displays.

The ground might be gently tickled to receive his own sowing; the petals of the young girl's nature, playfully forced apart, would leave the golden heart of the flower but the more accessible to his own vertical rays."

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.