Although Wharton witnessed these changes from the privileged standpoint of a wealthy American, she remained attuned to the complexities (and the contradictions) of modern culture. This period saw the culmination of modern change, in terms of increased industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and rising socioeconomic inequalities in the context of late capitalism and consumer culture. The breadth of Wharton’s oeuvre demonstrates not only her extensive education and intellectual insight but also her sustained attention to the social, economic, and cultural changes of the fin de siècle, the period that marked the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. This volume embraces this view and includes analyses of both Wharton’s signature works and less frequently taught or discussed texts, such as The Fruit of the Tree (1907), The Reef (1912), The Glimpses of the Moon (1922), A Son at the Front (1923), Twilight Sleep (1927), and The Children (1928), among others. ![]() Although earlier critics often dismissed Wharton’s late works as more conservative in tone and less refined in style, contemporary scholars emphasize the thematic and formal range of Wharton’s canon in its entirety. While these works have enjoyed both critical and popular acclaim-they have often dominated scholarly discussions and cinematic adaptations of Wharton’s canon-they do not exhaust the limits of Wharton’s career her literary output is remarkably versatile, including travelogues, ghost stories, poems, plays, literary criticism, cultural commentary, and architectural treatises. This keenly ironic glance informs Wharton’s best-known fiction, such as her major novels The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence (1920). Wharton’s masterful prose captured the ironic detachment with which she confronted her social peers and quickly became the hallmark of her authorial style. It addresses the relationship between Wharton and other writers, including Willa Cather, Henry James, and Charlotte Brontë, and others fresh perspectives on Wharton's views on gender, motherhood, law, architecture, and the classical tradition.Įdith Wharton, one of the most prolific American writers of the early twentieth century, is well known for her detailed, often satiric, accounts of upper-class New York, a privileged social circle in which she was born. This volume examines a wide range of Wharton's works, from her major novels: The House of Mirth The Customer of the Country and The Age of Innocence, to her war writings, Gothic fiction, and late works, such as The Children and The Glimpses of the Moon.
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