Sanctuary

Description

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Customer Reviews

An Unusual Story
"Sanctuary" is a novella by Edith Wharton, published in 1903. From what I have read, the plot did not cause any surprises at the time, but today the story seems rather unusual. It is a story which deals with ethics, morality, and family honor. While there is nothing particularly unusual in that, some of the choices made by the main character, Kate, seem rather drastic today, and one has a difficult time imagining that any woman today would make similar choices. The story is divided into two parts.

In the first part, we get to know Kate Orme, a woman who is engaged to Denis Payton. She is a woman who has been sheltered from the realities of the world, and comes to learn of an unpleasant situation involving Arthur, Denis' half-brother after he has passed on. Through learning about the situation and how Arthur's family handles it, Kate is upset with Denis and pushes him to do the moral thing. Arthur mother comes to talk with her, and Kate learns that it isn't just Denis who is willing to protect the family name regardless of the act. Lastly, she learns from her own father that scandal's have been covered up in her own family. After a bit of soul-searching, Kate comes to the conclusion that the most moral thing for her to do is to marry Denis so that she can try to remove the character taint which his yet to be conceived son have. This decision appears to be very unusual and it is doubtful that anyone today would reason in such a way. Kate also seems to ignore that she herself must be tainted since her own father and family also has displayed moral weakness.

Part two picks up several years later. We learn that Denis passed on when their son, Dick was young, and that he squandered most of their money. We also learn that Kate has put her own interests aside to get Dick the best education she can. Dick is starting his career and an ethical dilemma arises which has Kate worried. She is suspicious of the motives of those around Dick, and becomes worried that he is making the wrong choice. Everything seems to be pushing him towards the wrong path, and the similarities between his reaction and that of his father Denis when he was trying to hide the truth from her are readily apparent.

It will likely be difficult for many modern-day readers to understand the motivation of Kate in this story, but that is due to changes in our society, and not a flaw in the book itself. Nevertheless, I don't think this book is quite as good as Edith Wharton's previously published works and so I round this one down to three stars. It is still worth reading, especially for those who enjoy her other works, but it isn't quite as accessible.

2009-11-01 | Dave_42 (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Sacrifice and secrets
Edith Wharton's writing wallows in moral struggles and societal pressures, usually about adultery and social-climbing. But she tries a different approach for the novella "Sanctuary," a story that is thought-provoking and well-written, but feels more like the outline to a full-length novel than a story in its own right.

Kate Orme is wrapped up in her idyllic engagement to Denis, when a woman claiming to be his dissolute brother's wife kills herself and her child. To Kate's shock, Denis confesses that the woman was, but to avoid having a low-class person in the family, he suppressed evidence and lied. Even worse, he feels no guilt because he considers it worth the sacrifice.

Kate breaks off the engagement, but to protect any child of Denis' from his hypocrisies, she marries him. Many years later, Denis is dead, and their young son Dick is a blossoming architect about to enter a prestigious contest. But then a friend of his dies tragically, and leaves Dick his brilliant architectural plans... to enter in the contest as his own. Now Kate must see if her careful upbringing will make Dick do the right thing, or if he will follow in his father's footsteps.

Most of Wharton's books are wrapped up in ethical dilemmas or one kind or another, but "Sanctuary" tackles a very different kind of problem. And Wharton does a good job spinning out a sense of suspense, all about a young man who could tip either way, and inspiring disgust and outrage at Denis' weak, whiny defense of his crimes.

Sadly, the second half reads like Wharton was sketching out an enlarged outline for a novel, but got bored and just published it as-is. Details are sketchy, as is the society that these people live in, and more than two decades are skipped over instantly. Little of the storyline is fleshed out except for Kate's (seemingly endless) angst, which trickles on throughout way too many of the few pages.

Kate herself isn't easy to relate to -- she marries wussy Denis for a kid that might or might not be born, and spends most of the book torturing herself over Dick's future choices. She comes across as naive at best, manic at worst. Dick himself is a far more interesting character, since he exists in the grey area that most human beings inhabit -- he's a partying, slightly slackerish guy, but essentially good at heart.

"Sanctuary" tackles the grey areas and hypocrises of many "upright" people, but the second half drizzles off into a lot of bad angst and extreme reactions. Interesting, but it feels half-written.

2007-06-02 | ea_solinas (MD USA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

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Are Flaws in Morality Passed From Father to Son By Nature?
In Part One, Kate Orme discovers shortly before her marriage to Denis, that her fiance has covered up the fact that his dissolute brother was secretly married to a lower class woman, and had a child with her. By this deception Denis prevents the woman from inheriting her husband's estate, and is able to hold on to his own inheritance, resulting in the suicide of the woman and child. Kate is repelled by her finance's deception, but marries Denis anyway. In Part Two of the novel, many years have passed. Denis has died at a young age, leaving Kate alone to raise their son, Dick who is now an adult. When Dick is confronted with a moral dilemma in his professional life, Kate waits to see whether the father's 'moral' flaw has been passed to her son, or if her nurture of her son has been strong enough to cure it. The novel is beautifully written and exquisitely nuanced, yet the difficulty for the modern reader is how to react to the story in our own modern age of moral equivalency. A modern reader may view Kate's extreme reaction to the moral dilemma provided to her son to be overblown.

2004-10-20 | palmtree2000 (West Orange, NJ USA) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 4

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So smooth that the reader is instantly ensnared
Edith Wharton was born in 1986 to an upper class family in New York City. She could trace her ancestry back three centuries, and was expected to live an aristocratic life. She was educated at home, and married Teddy Wharton in 1885, settling into her role as society marm. Her marriage ended with the discovery of Teddy's affair in 1913, and Edith set herself free to publish many books, of which the most well known is probably The Age Of Innocence. Edith Wharton was a contemporary of Teddy Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry James. The quality of her writing is just beginning to be appreciated.

Kate Orme is a young woman engaged to Denis Peyton. They are both aristocrats, and as such are expected to remain in rigid roles, with the man shielding the woman from all upsets. When Denis confesses to a despicable act to protect his family's name involving the death of a young, pregnant woman who was secretly married to his brother, Kate is shattered by the exposure of this act. She decides to marry Denis anyway to protect his future children, and sets out to become the perfect mother. She has a son, who she raises by herself after Denis' death, but this son seems to have inherited the faulty character gene of his father. When a situation arises to test the meddle of her son, Kate has her doubts as to her ability as a mother:

"As she sat there in the radius of lamp-light which, for so many evenings, had held Dick and herself in a charmed circle of tenderness, she saw that her love for her boy had come to be merely a kind of extended egotism. Love had narrowed instead of widening her, had rebuilt between herself and life the very walls which, years and years before, she had laid low with bleeding fingers. It was horrible... How she had come to sacrifice everything to the one passion of ambition for her boy..."

Wharton is, obviously, a first rate writer who has gone without accolades for far too long because of her gender. It is fitting that her works be rediscovered by a wider audience. Her insight into gender differences and difficulties is far ahead of her time...a time when women were relegated to narrow roles of motherhood because they were thought to be of inferior intellect. Aside from that, Wharton's writing is so smooth that the reader is instantly ensnared. A great read.

...

2002-10-04 (Oregon, WI USA) | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 5

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The Greater Inclination

Description

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Customer Reviews

Inclined To Read
Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) wrote the stories contained in "The Greater Inclination" and had the volume published in March of 1899. In many ways this was her first work of literature. Mrs. Wharton had written "Fast and Loose" in 1876, it wasn't published until 1938, after she had died. She also had privately published a book of poetry titled "Verses" in 1878, and published a non-fictional work titled "The Decoration of Houses" which she co-authored with Ogden Codman in 1897. Thus, while she was no stranger to writing this was an important start to her career as an author of literature.

"The Greater Inclination" consists of 8 works, 7 works of short fiction, and one two-act play. It is a somewhat diverse collection with several stories which touch on aspects of human relationships and interactions, a very dark story which delves into the psyche, and a light and humorous story included as well. In all, it is a very strong first effort and well worth reading. The stories included are:

"The Muse's Tragedy" - In this story, the young man Danyers falls for Mrs. Anerton even before he meets her, because he believes that she is the Silvia of which the famous poet Vincent Rendle wrote. He learns what he can of her, and travels to Europe, though far from certain that he will encounter her there. He is fortunate though, and they do meet. For a month they are together at Villa d' Este, and they agree to meet again in Venice after six weeks apart. The story finishes with a letter from Mrs. Anerton written after their meeting in Venice, where she explains to Danvers her feelings and the reasons for not returning to Venice after promising to do so.

"A Journey" - This is a dark, almost Poe-like story of a woman returning from Colorado to New York City with her dying husband. Through her thoughts, we learn how they grew apart when her husband became sick, and how they travelled to Colorado for his health, but now that the doctors have given up and have allowed him to return to New York to die. It is on the morning of the last day of their travels where she discovers that he has passed away, and her fear of being put off the train with his lifeless body causes her to pretend to others that he is merely very sick. As the day slowly passes, she becomes more and more nervous about being found out.

"The Pelican" - The narrator tells the humorous story of Mrs. Amyot, a woman who decides she must give lectures in order to pay for the expense of raising her son and putting him through school after his father has died when he was just six months of age. Unfortunately, Mrs. Amyot's lectures are about what she wants to say, more than they are about the facts of the subject. As the years pass, the narrator encounters Mrs. Amyot again and again, she always tells him how nervous he makes her, and how she is doing these lectures for her son. She even has the narrator help her in preparing lectures when her popularity has waned, and he helps her find new audiences out west. Many years later, he finds she is still lecturing, still supposedly for the benefit of her son. He attends her lecture one more time, this time with an unusual guest.

"Souls Belated" - Lydia is travelling with the man she loves, Gannett, after having left her husband, Tillotson, and receiving notice that he was divorcing her. They are at first unable to discuss the situation, each seeking refuge elsewhere, he in reading, she in observing others and hoping to not be alone while travelling. Eventually they are able to speak, and they try to setup their new life together. However, they are held back by their circumstances. Though able to live a lie initially, due to others being focused on another couple (the Lintons, who are actually Lord Trevenna and Mrs. Cope) who are in similar circumstances, eventually through a confrontation with Mrs. Cope Lydia learns that her secret can easily be found out. Again she and Gannett search for a solution for how they can be together without being forced to live a lie, or is it better to end their relationship?

"A Coward" - Vibart meets Irene Carstyle's mother whose manner tells him a lot about herself. She seems to resent her husband's decisions which have led to her position, but he learns that the main decision Mr. Carstyle made was very honourable and even heroic. He makes himself a frequent guest of the Carstyle's, more to see Mr. Carstyle than Irene. When an unusual event occurs where Mr. Carstyle attempts to stop what he thinks are runaway horses and is then disappointed when they are not, Vibart learns the story of what happened in Mr. Carstyle's past to make him want to be heroic.

"The Twilight of the God" - This is a short play which opens with Isabel reading and Lucius Warland returning from sailing. Lucius has just learned that he needs to go to Washington and is surprised to find Marion Raynor has gone before he can say goodbye. Marion has left the list of people who are coming to dinner, and Lucius is very excited to learn that John Oberville is on it. Oberville is a man of great power and connections who could get Lucius the position that he wants. He also is a man who was in love with, and who was loved by Isabel, Lucius's wife, and Lucius also learns the reason why they didn't marry even though they both loved each other.

"A Cup of Cold Water" - Woburn intends to marry Miss Talcott and her wealth. He borrows money and then steals it when he loses in the market. He is about $50,000 in debt due to what is essentially theft, and he is about to be found out from an audit; so he decides to leave town. He decides to meet Miss Talcott one last time, but is surprised when he arrives at the ball that those who are there appear so unimportant. He observes her from afar, before giving up the falseness of that life. Later, as he stays in a cheap hotel to avoid spending a night on the ship he is taking to escape, he hears the crying of a woman (Ruby Glenn) and the click of a revolver, which causes him to try to help her when she appears on the verge of committing suicide. In his desire to help her, he forgets his own difficulties for a brief period, and ultimately her story helps him to decide what to do in dealing with his own personal crisis.

"The Portrait" - A group is discussing the pictures of Lillo, and his failure with his portrait of Vard, when Lillo himself is introduced. Later, he leaves with the narrator and discusses the circumstances of his failure, and why it was done on purpose.

2009-01-07 | Dave_42 (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 4

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The Custom of the Country (Penguin Classics)

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780143039709
• Requirement: NEW
• Notes: Disgrace New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

Wharton’s glittering satire of the newly affluent in Old New York

Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton’s second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior décor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating, and through a most intricate and satisfying plot that follows Undine’s marriages and affairs, she conveys a vision of social behavior that is both supremely informed and supremely disenchanted.

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Customer Reviews

Edith Wharton- Continually proving how beautiful words can be
Edith Wharton uses language in such beautiful ways, and to read her prose is a literary experience to crown all others. Her similes and metaphors are genius, incredible. Her acute sense of humor is there as well, for example when she speaks of Mrs. Spragg's having more to fear now than simply the horse (the horse instructor had eyes upon her daughter). Her social commentary is sharp, and classification for this writer as an anthropologist is correct. It all comes together in one pivotal scene in which "the custom of the country" is specifically mentioned, and we recognize the relationships between men and women as they stand, and how women cannot truly be blamed for their faults in a society in which they are allowed to practice no crafts of their own. Custom's protagonist has ample faults to be sure. She is selfish and lives life only looking to acquire the next best thing, but as a reader, one surely never comes to hate her. She is an interesting character study, even if her motives are always one dimensional. One almost wonders at her lack of sympathy, and can only grieve at the wake of sorrow left in her trail. This book is beautiful and exceptional! - made me think of Henry James. Also amusing pondering the differences between Americans and our European equivalents and the differences that living in this country has instilled in us.

2010-01-11 (Manhattan) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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late mailing
Even though it was within your parameters, it took a real long time for the book to arrive

2009-10-22 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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If you read one Wharton novel it should be this one.
THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is a great novel, arguably Wharton's finest, although she is better known for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. The primary character Undine Spragg is certainly one of the strongest and most significant in American literature, but this novel has many interesting, poignant, and exasperating secondary characters such as Paul Marvell, Elmer Moffatt, and Raymond de Chelles. THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is a novel about the clash of cultures, the war between and among the sexes and generations, and the dichotomy between the old and new world as represented by Europe and America. It is also an insightful and incisive examination of selfishness and insensitivity in the person of Undine, a small town girl with big ambitions, whose sense of self entitlement and voracious appetite for improving her station in life will leave a string of unfortunate victims in her wake.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY has a riveting plot, is wonderfully written, and gives us a fascinating picture of high society both in early 20th century New York and in France, where the Nouveau riche mix and mingle to various degrees of success with established families in America and the nobility in France. Given Edith Wharton's background and experiences both in the States and abroad, every page is written with an air of authority and the resounding ring of truth. If I were asked to recommend one Wharton novel above all others, it would be this one.

2009-06-23 (Manalapan, NJ) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Age of Not-So-Innocent
Undine Spragg is considered to be one of literature's most disturbingly evil characters. No doubt, Wharton could create the most dastardly of female villains--consider Bertha in "House of Mirth." This novel, an earlier one than "Age of Innocence" but later than "House of Mirth" is absolutely a masterpiece and I was stunned to realize I had not read this great American novel. I was pretty sure before that Edith Wharton was my favorite American author, now I'm certain. This is brilliance.

The story follows the young, spoiled, Midwestern beauty Undine from her embarrassing first moments assailing sophisticated New York society to her tainted conquests of society in France and finally New York again in the last moments of the golden age just prior to World War I (which so many authors, Thomas Mann and Colette tell us was the absolute end of a fairy-tale like era.) Wharton shows us the era on the cusp of change; motor cars are commonplace and broughams and landaus "lumbering"--telephones, elevators and subways are woven completely into New York life, heralding the 20th Century's revolutionary changes to come. Undine is as beautiful, captivating and cold as the soulless water nymph she is NOT named after--here, a delightful bit of Wharton's irony--THIS Undine is named after a patent hair product created by an enterprising grandparent.

Undine is clever in focusing on what she needs and wants, though completely uneducated and resistant to literature, arts and any science that does not immediately gratify her wishes. She is the PERFECT portrait of a "borderline personality disorder" who uses and abuses people as a means to her satisfaction, and who is constantly coveting the next, better thing that someone else has. She destroys her husband (a model for the later Newland Archer) and nearly destroys a few other people in her quest for celebrity, unbridled spending and having everything her way. The episodes in the book could come right out of "Dr. Laura"--parents fearful of their own child and giving in to their every whim, neglected and abandoned children used as pawns in divorce, lying, deception, retail therapy gone wild, serial divorce and general destruction of the institution of family values.

Undine matures only in her ability to "go slow", as Mrs. Heeny puts it, or to delay her gratification by making at least a few chess moves ahead on the board of her self-absorbed game. Her ability to blame others, never herself and to lay destruction in her path is a thread that never varies in the novel's unfolding.

The interesting thing is that Wharton, far from burning the seed corn of her bank of ideas, is astonishingly economical and uses all her characters in her novels over and over again, re-costuming them on her play stage and recycling the scenery. Undine has elements of Bertha (House of Mirth) and is the "anti-Ellen-Olenska (an exact opposite.) She has some of May Archer's stolid stupidity but surprising insight when it deals with her own survival. She has Lily Bart's heedlessness and willfulness. Elmer Moffatt, her foil and match, can be recognized in Beaufort from "Age of Innocence." It's fascinating to watch the similar characters appear in a new drama on Wharton's stage, and she is not only a master at drama but also a keen sociologist and anthropologist. We peep into French nobility, New York society and the demi-monde, all drawn with her exquisite sense of customs and mores.

If you love "Age of Innocence" and "House of Mirth" you can't help but love this novel. I'm not sure if it isn't her greatest--and it is almost on a par with Eliot's earlier "Middlemarch"--of which Virginia Woolff said was "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." "The Custom of the Country" was not only written for grown-up people, but is as fresh and modern and as filled with the same dilemmas people face today as in 1913.

2009-03-18 (Middletown, DE USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Wharton's Remarkable Creation of Undine Spragg!
Edith Wharton is still one of America's most well-known female novelists and writers. She creates Undine Spragg who aspires to adapt and adjust into New York City high society which is a recurring theme in Wharton's books like Age of Innocence or House of Mirth. Unlike House of Mirth, Undine is more comical, flawed and a challenge to any actress. This book should be made into a film if it hasn't already. I don't know why we have so much junk out there. Undine is not only comical but she is scheming to break into high society regardless of how it affects her husband and friends. This book is an American masterpiece and I have rediscovered it again since I took a course in college entitled American Novel as my seminar. This is an American Classic Piece of Literature.

2008-07-23 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Edith Wharton (Vintage)

Product Details

• Requirement: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780375702877
• Notes: Type New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning biographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, comes a superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women of letters.

Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born into a wealthy family, Wharton left America as an adult and eventually chose to create a life in France. Her renowned novels and stories have become classics of American literature, but as Lee shows, Wharton's own life, filled with success and scandal, was as intriguing as those of her heroines. Bridging two centuries and two very different sensibilities, Wharton here comes to life in the skillful hands of one of the great literary biographers of our time.

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The definitive biography of one of America’s greatest writers, from the author of the acclaimed masterpiece Virginia Woolf.

Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Hermione Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton--tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction.

Born in 1862, Wharton escaped the suffocating fate of the well-born female, traveled adventurously in Europe and eventually settled in France. After tentative beginnings, she developed a forceful literary professionalism and thrived in a luminous society that included Bernard Berenson, Aldous Huxley and most famously Henry James, who here emerges more as peer than as master. Wharton's life was fed by nonliterary enthusiasms as well: her fabled houses and gardens, her heroic relief efforts during the Great War, the culture of the Old World, which she never tired of absorbing. Yet intimacy eluded her: unhappily married and childless, her one brush with passion came and went in midlife, an affair vividly, intimately recounted here.

With profound empathy and insight, Lee brilliantly interweaves Wharton's life with the evolution of her writing, the full scope of which shows her far to be more daring than her stereotype as lapidarian chronicler of the Gilded Age. In its revelation of both the woman and the writer, Edith Wharton is a landmark biography.

Hermione Lee's Reading Guide to Edith Wharton

Hermione Lee, about whose Virginia Woolf the Amazon.com reviewer wrote, "Biographies don't get much better than this," has turned for her next major subject to Edith Wharton. Wharton's classics, including The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, and Ethan Frome, are known to many readers, but Lee has prepared exclusively for us a Reading Guide to Edith Wharton that goes beyond those familiar titles to unearth lesser-known gems among her remarkable stories and novels, from the story "After Holbein," "a masterpiece of ghoulish, chilling satire," to The Custom of the Country, her "most ruthless, powerful, and savage novel."

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Customer Reviews

Edith Wharton: Victorian Rebel!
While Edith Wharton's titles have become part of the American literary cannon, few of her readers know all that much about the author who created such revered works of fiction. Hermione Lee attempts to breathe life into who Edith Wharton was, and how her life influenced her art. Lee explores previously unresearched archival materials to flesh out a more vivid portrayal of the artist, as she did with Virginia Woolf. In the process Lee explores parts of Wharton's life there were left unrevealed by her previous biographer, R. W. B. Lewis, which leads to a greater understanding of her life, her times, and her craft. What emerges is a complex artist, driven by impulses, ambition, and contradictions, who also had considerable moments of doubt and was on the receiving end of considerable criticism. There is a tendency in male-dominated literature to view Wharton's contributions as somehow being lesser than that of her male peers, but in the end what Lee presents is an author who challenged the male-dominated realm and succeeded, and in many cases male authors came to view her not just as a peer but as a mentor.

The Wharton that emerges is a complicated and complex woman, whose personal life served as fodder for what she wrote about. The confining societal norms of her age dictated what she could and could not do, and that was injected into her work. What emerges is not a Victorian lady producing literature confined and limited to that age, but a woman rebelling against those same confines, urging rebellion against limitations and restrictions of any age. And that is the hallmark of great literature, which is why Wharton resonates still today. Lee's well thought out biography serves Wharton well!

2010-01-12 (Atlanta, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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One of the best literary biographies I've ever read.
"Edith Wharton," Hermione Lee's huge biography is one of the best literary biographies I've ever read, in fact one of the best biographies ever.
More than seventy years after her death, Wharton and her work are still sources of great interest. Lee's book is an exhaustive and penetrating examination of both her life and long writing career. Though I and others may quibble with her analysis of the more detailed aspects of Wharton's characters and the meaning of her stories, it's more than fair to say that one can point to the perhaps unexpected openness and variety of interpretations of her writing as a credit to her great craft.
Too often today Wharton is merely considered a chronicler of "New York golden age high society," and while she made the occasional bow to this expectation, I've always found her work emotionally rich and complex. And varied. Her masterpiece "Ethan Frome" is the exact opposite of what one would expect from the "Wharton school," and is superb. As is "Summer." Much of her short fiction is excellent, as are a number of her ghost stories.
Of course fame came to Wharton with the serialization and book publication of "The House of Mirth," which is one of my favorite Wharton novels, along with "Hudson River Bracketed," and "The Gods Arrive." "The House of Mirth" is a fine example of how deftly she handled the interplay between her famous, doomed heroine, Lily Bart's downward spiral emotional life amid the expectations and realities of both her self and societal repressions. I consider Wharton to be one of the most empathetic writers I've ever read. Lily Bart has one of my all time favorite, most moving quotes, her farewell to her friend Selden:

She paused again, trying to transmit to her voice the steadiness of her recovered smile. "There is someone I must say good-bye to. Oh, not you--we are sure to see each other again--but the Lily Bart you knew, I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you--I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you--and she'll be no trouble, she'll take up no room."
She went towards him, and put out her hand, still smiling. "Will you let her stay with you?" she asked.

It was Selden in "House of Mirth" who made me see the for the first time in literature what an impact ambiguity can be in characters. You the reader want to reach out and grab him and rail at him to rescue Lily Bart, to snap out of it, to help her. But of course he cannot, and to her credit Wharton realized this and eschewed easy answers , knowing that there are few offered in real life, and none for Lily.
This fine biography also recounts in detail Wharton's early life in New York and of course her lifelong love affair with France, which was really her true home. There's plenty of information on her troubled marriage and affair, of her heroic efforts during WWI, of her famous friendship with Henry James, among many others. "Edith Wharton" is a wonderful biography of a great writer, one I think Wharton herself would be proud of.

2009-11-16 | gary swafford | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Excellent biography brings Wharton to life
I loved this audiobook, although at 7 disks, the abridged version I heard was clearly very, very abridged. Lee's research and writing make Edith Wharton seem so real and so human and puts her books into perspective in terms of what was going on in her life at the time she wrote them.

The only criticism I have for this audiobook is that there are a whole lot of quotes from her letters, etc. that are in French, and only about 1/3 of them are followed by English translations. It's really frustrating as a non-French speaker to be denied these parts of what is an extraordinarily fascinating story. There is even a point where, in the midst of some particularly juicy correspondence, it says something to the effect of "And perhaps most revealing, Wharton wrote (long French sentence)." I was DYING to know what she said!!!

Other than that, though, this is an amazing, inspiring book that will make you want to read or re-read everything Edith Wharton wrote.

2009-08-08 (Los Angeles, CA, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Outstanding
I was first introduced to Hermione Lee when I stumbled upon and read her outstanding biography of Virginia Woolf. With so much already written by and about Woolf, I could not imagine an author coming up with enough fresh material, or old material written freshly, to justify reading such a huge book. But I did, and I was very, very impressed.

So, when I entered my "Edith Wharton phase" and began looking for a biography of Wharton before reading her works, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find that Hermione Lee had written a similarly huge biography of Edith Wharton.

Unlike Woolf, Wharton left almost nothing behind for her biographers, except her works: she left none of the letters others sent her (there may be rare exceptions) and there are very few letters that she wrote others that have survived. But despite this Lee has written another outstanding biography.

This is why I like it:

1) the numerous references throughout the book to other classic literary works, from Goethe to Bronte;

2) the extensive research on Henry James;

3) reading about Edith Wharton's appreciation (or lack thereof) of the modernist movement, specifically that of Virginia Woolf, the Bloomsbury Group, and James Joyce;

4) Wharton's thoughts on love, marriage, and divorce;

5) the candid, but balanced look at Wharton's affairs;

6) the meshing of Wharton's life with her novels; and,

7) the way she ends the book, and the vignette of Lee's personal visit to Wharton's grave in Paris.

I have the hard cover; this, review, I believe will be on the softcover.

2009-06-22 | oksol (San Antonio) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Lots of Detail
This biography of Edith Wharton features lots of detail, some newly presented, but not as much organization or insight as one would hope for. I wonder if Lee not being American was one reason for this: she can be excellent in some of her analyses--of some of Wharton's novels, especially of "Ethen Frome," for example--but doesn't seem to come to an overall understanding of Wharton that satisfies me. This is like some other biographies that are touted as "major" in that the biographer is piling up the details, but perhaps getting lost in them. Lee is a talented biographer, and she questions the accepted wisdom regarding some of the phases of Wharton's life, but this is not her best work. Still, she makes a good case for Wharton's strength of character and ability to deal with her life's difficulties while continuing to produce first rate work. Wharton's greatness as a writer is what we don't entirely see in Lee's account.

2008-01-11 | fjs (East Lansing, MI USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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The Valley of Decision

Description

Subjects: Italy -- Fiction Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

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The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

Description

One might not expect a woman of Edith Wharton's literary stature to be a believer of ghost stories, much less be frightened by them, but as she admits in her postscript to this spine-tingling collection, "...till I was twenty-seven or -eight, I could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story." Once her fear was overcome, however, she took to writing tales of the supernatural for publication in the magazines of the day. These eleven finely wrought pieces showcase her mastery of the traditional New England ghost story and her fascination with spirits, hauntings, and other supernatural phenomena. Called "flawlessly eerie" by Ms. magazine, this collection includes "Pomegranate Seed," "The Eyes," "All Souls'," "The Looking Glass," and "The Triumph of Night."

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"'No, I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm afraid of them,' is much more than the cheap paradox it seems to many. To 'believe,' in that sense, is a conscious act of the intellect, and it is in the warm darkness of the prenatal fluid far below our conscious reason that the faculty dwells with which we apprehend ghosts." Edith Wharton, known for her keen observations of an emotionally stifling upper-class social world, was so afraid of ghosts that for many years she couldn't even sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story. As horror scholar Jack Sullivan writes, "It is this sharply felt sensation of supernatural dread filtered through a skeptical sensibility that made Wharton a master of the ghost story." This collection contains 11 of her elegant, chilling tales, including "Afterword," "The Triumph of Night," and "Pomegranate Seed," plus Wharton's 1937 preface and an autobiographical postscript.

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Customer Reviews

Exceedingly Fine and Effective Ghost Stories
I read this anthology on the heels of reading a similar anthology of horror tales by Bram Stoker. I was surprised to find that Wharton easily surpasses Stoker as a writer of gothic tales. I had expected that the author of Dracula would be better at this genre, but no.

Some of the stories, like Kerfol, compare well with the best gothic tales of Vernon Lee, using foreign aristocratic settings and historic elements quite deftly. Wharton is equally adroit with stories that use American settings, including those that are quite outside her own native culture of old New York. "The Trimph of Night", for example, is set in upstate NY and deals with what happens when a man shirks his responsibility for stopping an evil man. "Bewitched" is set somewhere in New England, possibly CT like Ethan Fromme because the town of Starkfield is mentioned a few times in the story, as it is also mentioned in Ethan Fromme. "Bewitched" leaves much to the imagination, and after one reading it is not yet clear to me what exactly happened in this one. I know I will have to re-read it soon. "The Eyes" appears to be set in New York, and I was surprised at how full of gay subtext the story was, as if the protagonist in the tale was perhaps inspired by a homosexual man that Wharton knew, but did not quite like...Henry James perhaps, though I am sure she knew others.

This little anthology made me feel sorry that Wharton never gave us a gothic novel or two. The book shows that she certainly had an imagination for the disturbing and the macabre, although perhaps not enough interest in such subject matter as to compel the writing of a novel in that vein. Expect very fine, genteel ghost stories, but don't let my descriptors fool you. The tales are frightening and effective, and I believe them to be some of the best American gothic you can find.

2009-07-06 | booklover (Newington, CT) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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This book needs to come with a disclaimer!
Edith Wharton is an acknowleged giant of the fiction novel. But this particular book of hers needs to come complete with a disclaimer. I would suggest: DON'T EXPECT TO READ THE AVERAGE GHOST STORY HERE. My one negative thing to say about this book is actually a positive. I could only read one of these stories at a time because I had to think one story over before I went on to the next . My tendency is to sit down with a book and read it cover to cover with minor stops along the way for everyday life to intervene. I have been reading this book for over a week now because each story makes me stop after I have read it to have a nice long thinking session regarding what I have just read. I loved that.

My favorite story of the eleven story collection is titled, "Afterward". The title means that a person did not know if they had met the ghost at Lyng in Dorsetshire until long, long afterward. A superb rendering of a mystery which began so quietly that Mary Boyne didn't even know she was involved in it until it was too late.

Another favorite is "Kerfol" which takes place in Brittany and involves a pack of dogs and how they got where they were. Or were they there at all?

And then there is "Bewitched" a masterpiece which made me shiver while reading about the frozen New England winter even though it was 90 degrees outside my house. Wharton's descriptions of the physical appearances of all those involved in this wonderfully frightening tale is straight from the Grant Wood painting American Gothic, except with all the wintery background painted in by Edith Wharton.

Very highly recommended. These are not the modern man's ghost stories even though they were published in 1973. Some have no resolution, you have to decide for yourself how you think the situation ended. Some may not seem like ghost stories at all until you think about them afterward. Some are like those odd occurrances which make you wonder if you really got all your information straight and if you might, just might, be imagining things. A bonus for me were the black and white drawings which accompanied each story. The writing is wonderful but I had expected that from Edith Wharton. What I had not expected was to be so totally engrossed.

2008-06-27 (Midsouth, United States) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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A Great Collection of Scary Stories, and a Great Cover
Don't Miss "Afterward," a Great Ghost Story, June 15, 2007

Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my negative reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews as almost soon as they are posted. Oh, well.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to some great stories.

I read "Afterward," a 40-page story, many years ago, and I wrote "Good!" by it in the table of contents.

Another great story of the supernatural is the "Willows," by Algernon Blackwood (not in this collection, of course). Both of these stories are highly recommended, but I won't ruin the stories by saying much about them. They are "short stories," after all.

Check out my other longer reviews. Your comments--positive or negative--are appreciated. Read the "Willows" wherever you can find it. Thanks.

2007-06-15 (Sacramento, CA) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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A timeless treasure of tales
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. Highly recommended.

I was unaware that Edith Wharton, known for such insightful novels as The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome (as well as the popular movies these novels inspired), had indulged in writing ghost stories other than "Afterward" until I found this collection. In Ghost Stories, Wharton reveals her mastery of the psychology of horror-where ghosts terrify through their oblique influence on the human mind and emotion-and where these human foibles create their own horrors.

Wharton's ghosts take many forms-from the loyal retainer in "The Lady's Maid's Bell" to the loyal retainers of a different sort in "Kerfol"; from the guilt behind "The Eyes" to the guilt recognised "Afterward"; from the mysterious "Mr. Jones" to the ghostly and ghastly "Miss Mary Pask." Some of these visitations are not seen, or, in the case of "Kerfol," even heard. They fulfill various functions: To protect the secrets of the past, to bring the secrets of the past to light, to warn the present about the future, and to remind the living of the dead.

Like the best ghost story writers, Wharton begins each tale with a scenario that seems ordinary enough. Early on, she drops subtle clues that build from a feeling that something is somewhat amiss up to a sense of fractured reality that shatters one's assumptions. Wharton masterfully creates ironic twists ("Miss Mary Pask"), innocent victims (the wife in "Afterward"), and nontraditional ghosts ("The Eyes," "Kerfol"). In many cases, the reader is one step ahead of the narrator or protagonist (Hitchcock's definition of suspense), creating a delicious sense of inevitable, unavoidable doom.

If you are looking for the gore and thrills of today's tale of horror, you will not find them in Wharton's work. If, on the other hand, you appreciate the subtle, growing sense of terror that M. R. James insinuates into The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, you'll discover the same feeling of the fine line between this world and another that can manifest itself at any time and in any way when the need arises. These are stories to be read, savored, and read again-alone, of course.

Diane L. Schirf, 28 December 2003.

2003-12-29 | www.slywy.com | Helpful Votes: 24 | Rating: 5

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Not your average ghost stories
When I saw this collection in the book store, I was intrigued because, although I'm not a fan of Edith Wharton's, I do admire her skills as a writer. The stories themselves are good, well plotted, have good characterizations, are compelling, etc.; however, they aren't typical ghost stories. Some of them don't even involve ghosts, and still others offer little explination to the nature of the ghost, i.e. why they are still around. While they are creepy at times, they didn't really scare me. Some might argue that I, as a 24 year-old young woman, exposed to countless graphic horror films, such as the Scream series, might simply be desensitized to the subtleness of Wharton's stories (as some of the other reviewers have described them), but I'd have to disagree because I scare very easily - the Harry Potter books gave me a fright, so you can just imagine. So if you are looking for a good scare, I'd look elsewhere. But if you're looking for good stories and/or you're an Edith Wharton fan, then I recommend this book.

2003-09-23 | Helpful Votes: 12 | Rating: 3

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