The Touchstone sets up a moral dilemma for Stephen Glennard, whose career is floundering making it impossible to marry the woman he loves. He is resentful of his contemporaries who always find a place at someone’s dinner table or invitation to the opera, while he has to calculate cab fares, clothing and food to make …
Tag: Edith Wharton
The Marne: A Tale of War, Edith Wharton (1918)
“Whither thou goest will I go, thy people shall be my people…” Yes, France was the Naomi-country that had but to beckon, and her children rose and came. Edith Wharton had been living in France for many years when WWI began. Like many in Europe, Wharton was frustrated and angry at America’s reluctance to enter …
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The Fruit of the Tree, Edith Wharton (1907)
“Human life is sacred,” he said sententiously.“Ah, that must have been decreed by someone who had never suffered!” Justine exclaimed. The Fruit of the Tree is a departure from most Edith Wharton novels that deal with the superficiality and hypocrisy of the lives of the upper class. While that plays a role here, the novel …
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The Bunner Sisters, Edith Wharton, (1916)
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 …
The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton (1922)
He knew on how frail a thread the popularity of the penniless hangs, and how miserable a girl like Susy was the sport of other people’s moods and whims. It was a part of his difficulty and of hers that to get what they liked they so often had to do what they disliked. Nick …
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The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton (1913)
Ralph Marvell: You know nothing of this society you’re in; of its antecedents, its rules, its conventions; and it’s my affair to look after you, and warn you when you’re on the wrong track. Undine: I don’t believe an American woman needs to know such a lot about their old rules. They can see I …
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Madame de Treymes, Edith Wharton (1907)
And Madame de Treymes has left her husband? Ah, no, poor creature: they don’t leave their husbands—they can’t. Madame de Treymes, published in 1907, is Wharton’s first work after The House of Mirth. As one of the themes in most of her fiction, this novella is very much concerned with the male/female dynamic around marriage. …
Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (1920)
It was not the custom in New York drawing rooms for a lady to get up and walk away from one gentleman in order to seek the company of another. Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at her side. …
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (1905)
You asked me just now for the truth—well, the truth about any girl is that once she’s talked about she’s done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks. Though Lily Bart didn’t grow up rich, she was born into a comfortable and respectable home with relatives high on the social …
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (1911)
This was a very depressing novel. Let’s just get that out of the way. Like another of Wharton’s New England novels, Summer, which I read last year, she once again creates a character whose life has promise and potential, but bad choices made early on coupled with poverty and duty to family ruin any chance …
Classic Laurie 