"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a rich selection of materials, some previously unavailable, for the study of contemporary psychological, social, and economic issues, as well as Wharton's private correspondence and writings and biographical accounts of the author Arranged under two headings, "Criticism" revealsEthan Frome's impact as both a literary work and a social commentary. "Contemporary Reviews" consists of eight prominent assessments of Ethan Frome, including reviews from the New York Times Book Review, Outlook, The Nation, the Saturday Review, and those penned by...
"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a rich selection of materials, some previously unavailable, for the study of contemporary psychological, social, a...
"Criticism" collects eleven American and British contemporary reviews and nine major essays onThe Age of Innocence, including a groundbreaking piece on the two film adaptations of the novel. "A Chronology and Selected Bibliography" are also included.
"Criticism" collects eleven American and British contemporary reviews and nine major essays onThe Age of Innocence, including a groundbreakin...
A New York Review Books Original Edith Wharton wrote about New York as only a native can. Her Manhattan is a city of well-appointed drawing rooms, hansoms and broughams, all-night cotillions, and resplendent Fifth Avenue flats. Bishops' nieces mingle with bachelor industrialists; respectable wives turn into excellent mistresses. All are governed by a code of behavior as rigid as it is precarious. What fascinates Wharton are the points of weakness in the structure of Old New York: the artists and writers at its fringes, the free-love advocates testing its limits, widows and...
A New York Review Books Original Edith Wharton wrote about New York as only a native can. Her Manhattan is a city of well-appointed drawing...
Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862 -1937) channelled her fear and obsession into creating a series of spine-tingling tales filled with spirits beyond the grave and other supernatural phenomena. While claiming not to believe in ghosts, paradoxically she did confess that she was frightened of them. Wharton imbues this potent irrational and imaginative fear into her ghostly fiction to great effect.
In this unique collection of finely wrought tales Wharton...
Selected & Introduced by David Stuart Davies.
Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edit...
With an Introduction by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University.
With this intensely moving short novel, Edith Wharton set out 'to draw life as it really was' in the lonely villages and desolate farms of the harsh New England mountains. Through the eyes of a visitor from the city, trapped for a winter in snowbound Starkfield, readers glimpse the hidden histories of this austere and beautiful land. Piecing together the story of monosyllabic Ethan Frome, his grim wife, Zeena, and Mattie Silver, her charming cousin, Wharton explores...
With an Introduction by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University.
Introduction and Notes by Janet Beer, Manchester Metropolitan University.
The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, aged 29, beautiful, impoverished and in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite, and to support her expensive habits - her clothes, her charities and her gambling. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to the kind of gossip and slander which attach to a girl who has been on the marriage market for too long.
Wharton charts the course of Lily's life, providing, along the...
Introduction and Notes by Janet Beer, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's combination of powerful prose combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920. In 1921 The Age of Innocence achieved a double distinction - it...
Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark a...
Edith Wharton's subtle variation on the theme of the eternal triangle features Anna Leath, a rich American widow living in France; her daughter's governess, Sophy Viner; and the first love of Anna's youth, George Darrow, who has come back into her life.
Edith Wharton's subtle variation on the theme of the eternal triangle features Anna Leath, a rich American widow living in France; her daughter's gove...
With this novel about the anguish of loving, and society's brutal treatment of those who transgress its codes, Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.
With this novel about the anguish of loving, and society's brutal treatment of those who transgress its codes, Edith Wharton became the first woman to...
Lilly Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful and charming. She has expensive tastes, loves to gamble and socialises with the immensely wealthy upper-class families of New York. But her meagre finances are dwindling. Given the restrictions imposed by society, her only hope of financial security is to find a suitable husband. However, Lilly has an independence of spirit which stands in the way of her committing to the suitors available to her. As her options diminish, her friends become her enemies and her situation grows increasing perilous.
Through the prism of Lilly's life, Edith...
Lilly Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful and charming. She has expensive tastes, loves to gamble and socialises with the immensely wealthy upper-class ...
