Xingu is a satirical short story about a “Lunch Club” of several women, who are “indomitable huntresses of erudition” (203). They have invited the “celebrated” novelist Osric Dane to their next meeting, and in chapter 1 they prepare for the… Read More ›
Published in the Century Magazine in 1896, this composite story, consisting of 10 Sketches or Parables, depicts an individual’s struggle to construct beauty and order. The individual vignettes mirror facets of responsibility, growth, and sense of self-worth in a Dantesque… Read More ›
Edith Wharton’s “Souls Belated” centers on Lydia Tillotson, a divorced woman, who travels with Ralph Gannett, a successful writer, but refuses to marry him so that she can maintain her self-esteem. McDowell detects the implied contradictory nature of marriage as… Read More ›
Since its publication in her collection of short stories The World Over (1936), Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” has been frequently anthologized. Masterfully constructed with multiple narrative voices and in a satirical tone, “Roman Fever” is the culmination of a lifetime… Read More ›
“The Quicksand,” published in The Descent of Man (1904), portrays the self-examination of the wealthy Mrs. Quentin as she reaches out to help her son and his girlfriend. The instability of the ground upon which she has constructed her life… Read More ›
Contributing to Edith Wharton’s imaginative explorations of evolutionary theory and to her ironic portrayals of marriage, “The Other Two,” appearing in The Descent of Man and Other Stories (1904), foreshadows her later novel, The Custom of the Country (1913). Alice… Read More ›
One of Edith Wharton’s many stories of New York, this novella was published with the subtitle The ’Fifties in 1924 as the second of four volumes in a set entitled Old New York. The story exemplifies Wharton’s use of irony… Read More ›
One of Edith Wharton’s many stories of New York, it was published with the subtitle The ’Seventies in 1924 as the last of four volumes in a set entitled Old New York. This novella depicts with subtle realism the reactions… Read More ›
Published in the August 1907 issue of Scribner’s magazine and in book form the following February, this novella exhibits Edith Wharton’s subtle realism and is one of her works depicting Americans in France. It tells of Fanny de Malrive, née… Read More ›
In her short story April Showers, (1900) Edith Wharton tells the story of Theodora (writing under the pseudonym of Gladys Glyn), an aspiring young writer who has just completed her first novel, April Showers. Through the fictional Kathleen Kyd, Wharton… Read More ›
Because many of Edith Wharton’s (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) characters and themes resemble those of Henry James, her work has sometimes been regarded as derivative of his. Each of these authors wrote a number of stories regarding… Read More ›
Feminist long fiction features female characters whose quest for self-agency leads to conflict with a traditionally masculinist and patriarchal society. These novels have been harshly criticized and dismissed—and even ridiculed—for their nontraditional female characters. Feminist ideology in the Western world… Read More ›
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