Teaching Edith Wharton’s Major Novels and Short Fiction


Book Description

This book translates recent scholarship into pedagogy for teaching Edith Wharton’s widely celebrated and less-known fiction to students in the twenty-first century. It comprises such themes as American and European cultures, material culture, identity, sexuality, class, gender, law, history, journalism, anarchism, war, addiction, disability, ecology, technology, and social media in historical, cultural, transcultural, international, and regional contexts. It includes Wharton’s works compared to those of other authors, taught online, read in foreign universities, and studied in film adaptations.




The House of Mirth


Book Description

In late 19th-century New York, high society places great demands on a woman—she must be beautiful, wealthy, cultured, and above all, virtuous, at least on the surface. At 29, Lily Bart has had every opportunity to marry successfully within her social class, but her irresponsible lifestyle and high standards lead her further and further down the social ladder. Her gambling debts are catching up with her, and an arrangement with a friend's husband causes society to begin questioning her virtue. The House of Mirth is Edith Wharton’s sharp critique of an American upper class she viewed as morally corrupt and relentlessly materialistic. EDITH WHARTON [1862–1937], born in New York, made her debut at the age of forty but managed to write around twenty novels, nearly a hundred short stories, poetry, travelogues, and essays. Wharton was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times: 1927, 1928, and 1930. For The Age of Innocence [1920], she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.




Old New York


Book Description

Four novellas by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Age of Innocence, brilliantly capturing New York of the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and '70s. The four short novels in this collection are set in the New York of the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, each one revealing the codes and customs that ruled society, portrayed with the keen style that is uniquely Edith Wharton's. Originally published in 1924 and long out of print, these tales are vintage Wharton, dealing boldly with such themes as infidelity, illegitimacy, jealousy, the class system, and the condition of women in society. Included in this remarkable quartet are False Dawn, which concerns the stormy relationship between a domineering father and his son; The Old Maid, the best known of the four, in which a young woman's secret illegitimate child is adopted by her best friend—with devastating results; The Spark, about a young man's moral rehabilitation, which is "sparked" by a chance encounter with Walt Whitman; and New Year's Day, an O. Henryesque tale of a married woman suspected of adultery. Old New York is Wharton at her finest.




Student Companion to Edith Wharton


Book Description

One of the most accomplished American writers of the early 20th century, Edith Wharton achieved both critical recognition and popular acclaim. This Student Companion provides an introduction to Wharton's fiction. Beginning with her life and career, the volume places Wharton in the context of her times, focusing on how she was shaped by the culture of wealth and privilege into which she was born. Her struggle to resist the demands of her social world paralleled her characters' lives and contributed to the power of her writing. Included are an in-depth discussion of her writing, along with analyses of thematic concerns, character development, historical context, and plot. A close critical reading covers each of her major works, with a full chapter devoted to each: The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), Summer (1917), The Age of Innocence (1920), and her two novellas, Madame de Treymes (1907) and The Old Maid (1924). Another chapter addresses Wharton's short stories and considers some of her most famous and anthologized tales, such as The Other Two and Roman Fever. This companion is ideal for students who are reading Wharton for the first time, or for general readers who are seeking a greater understanding of her writing. A select bibliography offers suggestions for further reading about Wharton and includes criticism and contemporary reviews of her work.




New Essays on 'The House of Mirth'


Book Description

This volume, first published in 2001, makes distinctive claims for the historical, critical, and theoretical significance of Wharton's breakthrough work.




The Buccaneers


Book Description

Edith Wharton's spellbinding final novel tells a story of love in the gilded age that crosses the boundaries of society—soon to be an original series on AppleTV+! “Brave, lively, engaging...a fairy-tale novel, miraculouly returned to life.”—The New York Times Book Review Set in the 1870s, the same period as Wharton's The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers is about five wealthy American girls denied entry into New York Society because their parents' money is too new. At the suggestion of their clever governess, the girls sail to London, where they marry lords, earls, and dukes who find their beauty charming—and their wealth extremely useful. After Wharton's death in 1937, The Christian Science Monitor said, "If it could have been completed, The Buccaneers would doubtless stand among the richest and most sophisticated of Wharton's novels." Now, with wit and imagination, Marion Mainwaring has finished the story, taking her cue from Wharton's own synopsis. It is a novel any Wharton fan will celebrate and any romantic reader will love. This is the richly engaging story of Nan St. George and Guy Thwarte, an American heiress and an English aristocrat, whose love breaks the rules of both their societies.







Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Masterpieces


Book Description

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821 - 188) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 when he was 25. His major works include Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His output consists of eleven novels, three novellas, seventeen short novels and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature. In this book: The Brothers Karamazov Crime and Punishment Translator: Constance Garnett




Summer


Book Description

One of the first novels to deal honestly with a woman's sexual awakening, "Summer" created a sensation upon its 1917 publication. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Ethan Frome" shattered the standards of conventional love stories with candor and realism. Nearly a century later, this tale remains fresh and relevant.




The House of Mirth (Volume 1 of 2 ) (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)


Book Description

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