The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shop and content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they had once imagined it would be…and it was long since their hopes had soared higher.

Edith Wharton is known for her sharp observations about the excesses of the upper classes and expats of New York during the turn of the last century, but in the Bunner Sisters she turns her attention to working class shop owners and their day to day survival.

In novella form, this is a story about two sisters who are just scraping by with their small hat shop on a side street in a fading area of New York City. Ann Eliza, the oldest and Evelina the younger are loving and supportive of each other until Herman Ramy, who owns a clock repair shop, comes on the scene. As he gets to know the sisters he settles on Ann Eliza and proposes, but she tells him she has vowed never to marry. It is an easy switch for him to the younger sister, who does not know about the previous proposal.  They marry quickly and he spirits her off to St. Louis where he has been offered a job. 

Ann Eliza has given Evelina her share of the money they had saved up when her sister tells her how expensive St. Louis is and that Ramy will not get a raise until he’s been on the job for many months. Alone for the first time in her life Ann Eliza does the best she can, but without another person to run to other shops for supplies and food, it becomes challenging.

When her sister’s letters stop coming she fears the worst. Spending the little money she has she goes to St. Louis. Remembering the name of the shop in which Ramy was supposed to be working she finds he was fired for opium addiction and the owner has no idea where he is now. So Ramy wasn’t sick, which was one of the reasons the sisters felt sorry for him; he was addicted to opium even them. Ann Eliza returns to New York City fearing her sister is lost forever. When Evelina finally shows up alone, she has a harrowing story to tell.

Wharton packs such an emotional punch in her novellas that I always feel like I have been put through a ringer! This affected me similarly.