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The Reckoning
'If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature.'
Two moving stories of love, loss, desire and divorce, from one of the great chroniclers of nineteenth-century New York life.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937).
Wharton's works available in Penguin Classics are Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth.
Two moving stories of love, loss, desire and divorce, from one of the great chroniclers of nineteenth-century New York life.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937).
Wharton's works available in Penguin Classics are Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth.
49 pages, Paperback
First published August 8, 2000
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1780 people want to read
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,440 books5,262 followersEdith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
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February 11, 2025
Two interesting short stories from Edith Wharton.
Mrs Mansley’s View: This is a sad story about an old lady who spends her days sitting in her third-floor bedroom. Her life consists of looking at the gardens and yards in her neighbourhood.
Mrs Manstey had never been a sociable woman, and during her husband’s lifetime his companionship had been all-sufficient to her.
Mrs Mansley could name every plant she could see and who's yard the plant was in, trees too! However, things turnaround when her next-door neighbour decides to build a large extension out of the back of her home, this blocking most/all of Mrs Mansley’s view. Her only joy in life. How will she respond to Mrs Mansley’s concerns?
The Reckoning: An interesting story about a married couple, Julia and Clement Westall, who have an unusual marriage agreement. It’s particularly unique for the nineteenth century. This agreement allows for either party to leave the union if they see fit.
I thought it was a fundamental article of our creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty
It’s a voluntary agreement to be together. Obligation freed. Anyway, the gentleman is attracted to another woman, this tests this theory and the ramifications of his decision.
I enjoyed the first story a little more, but I still liked the second story – particularly the implications a split in a relationship has on the partner who is left behind.
4 Stars
Mrs Mansley’s View: This is a sad story about an old lady who spends her days sitting in her third-floor bedroom. Her life consists of looking at the gardens and yards in her neighbourhood.
Mrs Manstey had never been a sociable woman, and during her husband’s lifetime his companionship had been all-sufficient to her.
Mrs Mansley could name every plant she could see and who's yard the plant was in, trees too! However, things turnaround when her next-door neighbour decides to build a large extension out of the back of her home, this blocking most/all of Mrs Mansley’s view. Her only joy in life. How will she respond to Mrs Mansley’s concerns?
The Reckoning: An interesting story about a married couple, Julia and Clement Westall, who have an unusual marriage agreement. It’s particularly unique for the nineteenth century. This agreement allows for either party to leave the union if they see fit.
I thought it was a fundamental article of our creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty
It’s a voluntary agreement to be together. Obligation freed. Anyway, the gentleman is attracted to another woman, this tests this theory and the ramifications of his decision.
I enjoyed the first story a little more, but I still liked the second story – particularly the implications a split in a relationship has on the partner who is left behind.
4 Stars
April 5, 2018
Update January 2016
A couple says that any of them can divorce if they so please so, then the husband falls for someone else, and the woman is left sad as she still loves him, but must live with the decision she consented to when they got married. The other story takes place mostly as a woman stares through her window, her greatest pleasure, then she turns unhinged in her effort to stop her view from being lost. For one depressing and one comical, they seem to be the perfect introduction for someone looking to get into Wharton’s writing, the stories are better than some of her novels.
.............................................
This book was read for the #readwomen month.
I have read three novels by Edith Wharton, and now I have read two of her short stories, The Reckoning and Mrs Manstey's View . These two stories touch on women and marriage, as well as heartache, and the conservation of a garden, but mostly freedom. If I had not read her novels, this would have been the works I would have liked to be introduced to her.
A couple says that any of them can divorce if they so please so, then the husband falls for someone else, and the woman is left sad as she still loves him, but must live with the decision she consented to when they got married. The other story takes place mostly as a woman stares through her window, her greatest pleasure, then she turns unhinged in her effort to stop her view from being lost. For one depressing and one comical, they seem to be the perfect introduction for someone looking to get into Wharton’s writing, the stories are better than some of her novels.
.............................................
This book was read for the #readwomen month.
I have read three novels by Edith Wharton, and now I have read two of her short stories, The Reckoning and Mrs Manstey's View . These two stories touch on women and marriage, as well as heartache, and the conservation of a garden, but mostly freedom. If I had not read her novels, this would have been the works I would have liked to be introduced to her.
December 3, 2018
"The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self."
- Edith Wharton, The Reckoning
Vol N° 48 of my Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set. This volume contains Wharton's short story "Mrs Manstey's View" published in 1891 and "The Reckonking" published in 1902.
Both of these stories are amazing, absolutely brutal in their lonliness and both are absolutely heartbreaking in their portrail of life after love. Wharton's sentences seem to rip boldly across the page like a confident architect's pencil racing a bold horizontal line across a well-mounted T-Square. But, the lead in the pencil violently breaks at the very end, predictibly ending all hope for stability, grounding, emphasis or even direction.
- Edith Wharton, The Reckoning
Vol N° 48 of my Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set. This volume contains Wharton's short story "Mrs Manstey's View" published in 1891 and "The Reckonking" published in 1902.
Both of these stories are amazing, absolutely brutal in their lonliness and both are absolutely heartbreaking in their portrail of life after love. Wharton's sentences seem to rip boldly across the page like a confident architect's pencil racing a bold horizontal line across a well-mounted T-Square. But, the lead in the pencil violently breaks at the very end, predictibly ending all hope for stability, grounding, emphasis or even direction.
October 24, 2017
http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=3424
Penguin's Little Black Classics Series introduced me to number of authors I hadn't read before; among them Edith Wharton - admittedly a rather embarrassing omission from my reading list until now. The Reckoning, a small booklet, contains apart from the story of the same name only one more piece, Wharton's first ever published story Mrs Manstey's View.
Mrs Manstey's View appeared 1891 and marked the beginning of the career of one of the most important American author's of the first half of the 20th century, and although Wharton was later very critical regarding her early stories - most of them are not reprinted in her Collected Stories -, it is of course very interesting to get a first-hand impression of her writing before the novels that made her famous, following the publication of The House of Mirth.
Mrs Manstey's View is one of the most devastating portraits of lonely widowhood I have read. When the view from the window of her rented room in a boarding house to which the title is referring and which is her only joy is threatened by the construction of an extension building, the elderly Mrs Manstey, practically forgotten by her daughter who lives far away and considered as mad by her few social contacts because of her obsession about her view and her inadequate attempts to stop the construction work that will destroy this view for good, comes up with a last desperate idea to put a halt to the extension plans, an idea with catastrophic consequences...
While the language and the setting of the story are rather conventional, and while the story is too short to get a really deep inside into the character and psychology of the protagonist, this piece works nevertheless well as a short story, and although the more mature author found certain flaws in her early stories, it is already with this first work that appeared in print that the author made a mark in literary circles in 1891, the date of the first publication.
The Reckoning, first published in 1911, shows Wharton already at the height of her powers as an author. It is considerably longer than the first story, and is also more elaborated in more than one respect.
The story's main character, Julia Westall, is married to her second husband Clement since ten years. Her marriage can be considered a "modern" one: in a time when divorce was - especially for a woman - a social stigma, Julia has left her first rich husband without regrets. Too socially awkward, too "impossible" was John Arment, and the friends of the Westall's, among them the upper-class Van Sideren's consider this, together with Julia's obvious disinterestedness (her second husband is moving slowly upward the social ladder, but is not a really wealthy man) as something that makes an otherwise in such circles scandalous divorce acceptable. When Westall, a verbal advocate of "modern" ideas also regarding the institution of marriage, takes a serious interest in the daughter of the Van Sideren's, Julia finds herself from one moment to the next in a situation where her orderly and seemingly happy life collapses. The surprising climax of the story sees Julia in the home of her first husband. But I will not reveal more details here...
With its six more elaborated characters, and especially with a heroine that has considerably more depth than the protagonist of the first story, The Reckoning is a really fascinating story. It is also a strong, almost brutal analysis of the power balance between men and women in the society in which Wharton was living. Once a husband decided to discard his wife, it meant for her usually that she lost everything, including her position in society (which considered women mainly as an adornment of their husbands). What is additionally tough for Julia is the fact that she doesn't exactly understand why it happens, the marriage having been over ten years a happy one (at least by superficial standards), and her visit at her first husband is acknowledging the fact that now she knows that he also didn't understand what happened when she left him ten years ago...
Altogether, The Reckoning is a remarkably fresh story that resonates long in the mind of the reader.
I am glad that I started my personal Edith Wharton Reading Challenge with this teaser; now I am curious to read not only her most accomplished novels but also her Collected Stories!
Penguin's Little Black Classics Series introduced me to number of authors I hadn't read before; among them Edith Wharton - admittedly a rather embarrassing omission from my reading list until now. The Reckoning, a small booklet, contains apart from the story of the same name only one more piece, Wharton's first ever published story Mrs Manstey's View.
Mrs Manstey's View appeared 1891 and marked the beginning of the career of one of the most important American author's of the first half of the 20th century, and although Wharton was later very critical regarding her early stories - most of them are not reprinted in her Collected Stories -, it is of course very interesting to get a first-hand impression of her writing before the novels that made her famous, following the publication of The House of Mirth.
Mrs Manstey's View is one of the most devastating portraits of lonely widowhood I have read. When the view from the window of her rented room in a boarding house to which the title is referring and which is her only joy is threatened by the construction of an extension building, the elderly Mrs Manstey, practically forgotten by her daughter who lives far away and considered as mad by her few social contacts because of her obsession about her view and her inadequate attempts to stop the construction work that will destroy this view for good, comes up with a last desperate idea to put a halt to the extension plans, an idea with catastrophic consequences...
While the language and the setting of the story are rather conventional, and while the story is too short to get a really deep inside into the character and psychology of the protagonist, this piece works nevertheless well as a short story, and although the more mature author found certain flaws in her early stories, it is already with this first work that appeared in print that the author made a mark in literary circles in 1891, the date of the first publication.
The Reckoning, first published in 1911, shows Wharton already at the height of her powers as an author. It is considerably longer than the first story, and is also more elaborated in more than one respect.
The story's main character, Julia Westall, is married to her second husband Clement since ten years. Her marriage can be considered a "modern" one: in a time when divorce was - especially for a woman - a social stigma, Julia has left her first rich husband without regrets. Too socially awkward, too "impossible" was John Arment, and the friends of the Westall's, among them the upper-class Van Sideren's consider this, together with Julia's obvious disinterestedness (her second husband is moving slowly upward the social ladder, but is not a really wealthy man) as something that makes an otherwise in such circles scandalous divorce acceptable. When Westall, a verbal advocate of "modern" ideas also regarding the institution of marriage, takes a serious interest in the daughter of the Van Sideren's, Julia finds herself from one moment to the next in a situation where her orderly and seemingly happy life collapses. The surprising climax of the story sees Julia in the home of her first husband. But I will not reveal more details here...
With its six more elaborated characters, and especially with a heroine that has considerably more depth than the protagonist of the first story, The Reckoning is a really fascinating story. It is also a strong, almost brutal analysis of the power balance between men and women in the society in which Wharton was living. Once a husband decided to discard his wife, it meant for her usually that she lost everything, including her position in society (which considered women mainly as an adornment of their husbands). What is additionally tough for Julia is the fact that she doesn't exactly understand why it happens, the marriage having been over ten years a happy one (at least by superficial standards), and her visit at her first husband is acknowledging the fact that now she knows that he also didn't understand what happened when she left him ten years ago...
Altogether, The Reckoning is a remarkably fresh story that resonates long in the mind of the reader.
I am glad that I started my personal Edith Wharton Reading Challenge with this teaser; now I am curious to read not only her most accomplished novels but also her Collected Stories!
January 11, 2023
Dwa krótkie opowiadania, które chociaż przyjemnie się czyta, to nie wzbudzają żadnych emocji a wręcz nużą.
January 24, 2019
Love is one of the most intense and beautiful feelings we can experience, but the hook is that more often than not, there is a life after love. Edith Wharton is a master in portraying the loneliness and confusion that come with experiencing that.
This edition combines two short stories which I both enjoyed very much. The first one - Mrs Manstey's View - deals with a woman on her own. She has lost her husband nearly two decades ago, isn't particular close to her grown-up daughter and lives a life emotionally sealed off from the outer world. Wharton shows the character's extraordinary eye for details and the little beautiful things in her surroundings, through which we can feel her loneliness:
"She loved, at twilight, when the distant brown-stone spire seemed melting in the fluid yellow of the west, to lose herself in vague memories of a trip to Europe, made years ago, and now reduced in her mind's eye to a pale phantasmagoria of indistinct steeples and dreamy skies."
The second story - The Reckoning - deals with the end of a marriage. It's equally as tragic and insightful and shows how sometimes it is difficult to understand your partners or even your own feelings. Wharton vaguely questions the concept of marriage through her characters' feelings (Can two people really promise to love each other until the end of time?) and it's a notably progressive thought for a woman to give voice to in the early 20th century.
"Her marriage had been too concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it had been uncomplicated."
In 2015 Penguin introduced the Little Black Classics series to celebrate Penguin's 80th birthday. Including little stories from "around the world and across many centuries" as the publisher describes, I have been intrigued to read those for a long time, before finally having started. I hope to sooner or later read and review all of them!
This edition combines two short stories which I both enjoyed very much. The first one - Mrs Manstey's View - deals with a woman on her own. She has lost her husband nearly two decades ago, isn't particular close to her grown-up daughter and lives a life emotionally sealed off from the outer world. Wharton shows the character's extraordinary eye for details and the little beautiful things in her surroundings, through which we can feel her loneliness:
"She loved, at twilight, when the distant brown-stone spire seemed melting in the fluid yellow of the west, to lose herself in vague memories of a trip to Europe, made years ago, and now reduced in her mind's eye to a pale phantasmagoria of indistinct steeples and dreamy skies."
The second story - The Reckoning - deals with the end of a marriage. It's equally as tragic and insightful and shows how sometimes it is difficult to understand your partners or even your own feelings. Wharton vaguely questions the concept of marriage through her characters' feelings (Can two people really promise to love each other until the end of time?) and it's a notably progressive thought for a woman to give voice to in the early 20th century.
"Her marriage had been too concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it had been uncomplicated."
In 2015 Penguin introduced the Little Black Classics series to celebrate Penguin's 80th birthday. Including little stories from "around the world and across many centuries" as the publisher describes, I have been intrigued to read those for a long time, before finally having started. I hope to sooner or later read and review all of them!
January 23, 2022
boring ngl
July 17, 2016
This first foray into the works of Edith wharton as been interesting. The first of the two short stories Mrs Manstey's View was a sad but wonderful story that left me feeling not so much unhappy but unusually warm. The story of this old womans view from her window and the pleasure it brings her right to the end is pleasing and a great way to end a day at work... I shall rest easy now it's time to sleep.
The title story while again an excellent piece of writing was bizarre and not to my taste but I do like her wrting style.
Yes! An author that needs to be explored more because of these two contrasting tales.
The title story while again an excellent piece of writing was bizarre and not to my taste but I do like her wrting style.
Yes! An author that needs to be explored more because of these two contrasting tales.
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March 30, 2018
I enjoyed the first story more than the second. Mrs Manstey’s View tells the story of an elderly woman who sits most days enjoying the view outside her window. Not a particularly wonderful view but one where she knows each shrub and her neighbors eccentricities. When her view is to disappear due to a building extension she becomes distraught. What follows is heartbreak. A great short story which captures for me that it is the everyday and small things that can bring contentment.
The Reckoning tells the story of a woman on her second marriage that makes an agreement that comes back to haunt her. The husband keeps her to his word. Again heartbreak.
The Reckoning tells the story of a woman on her second marriage that makes an agreement that comes back to haunt her. The husband keeps her to his word. Again heartbreak.
August 25, 2020
3.5 Stars
This edition contains two short stories by the American author Edith Wharton. The first is on marriage and falling in and out of love. And while I quite liked the concept, I liked the second story a bit better. It's about an old woman who's main pleasure in life is watching the world pass by from her window. She goes to great length to keep that view safe.
Intriguing short stories, although I am not entirely convinced of the writing, which I found rather bleak.
~Little Black Classics #48~
Find this and other reviews on https://www.urlphantomhive.com
This edition contains two short stories by the American author Edith Wharton. The first is on marriage and falling in and out of love. And while I quite liked the concept, I liked the second story a bit better. It's about an old woman who's main pleasure in life is watching the world pass by from her window. She goes to great length to keep that view safe.
Intriguing short stories, although I am not entirely convinced of the writing, which I found rather bleak.
~Little Black Classics #48~
Find this and other reviews on https://www.urlphantomhive.com
February 24, 2017
There are two short stories in this Penguin collection, and I actually found the first one "Mrs. Manstey's View" the more moving one. It seemed to really capture the power and subtlety and potential of a short story, for in only 16 pages it completely establishes its character (an elderly widow), brings her life to a crisis point, and manages to surprise the reader. Mrs. Manstey's world is quite small, limited to a back room in the third floor of a New York boarding house, but her view of the world (quite literally, from her window) has a richness and expansiveness to it. When this view is threatened, Mrs. Manstey protests - and by that time, I was completely drawn into her small and poignant life.
The Reckoning is also an adept story, and has a neatly book-ended twist to in the form of Julia Westall's married life, and I did wonder if it revealed some of Wharton's own complicated feelings about marriage. "If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature."
The Reckoning is also an adept story, and has a neatly book-ended twist to in the form of Julia Westall's married life, and I did wonder if it revealed some of Wharton's own complicated feelings about marriage. "If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature."
May 17, 2016
The second short story in the book - The Reckoning gets 3.5 stars from me. A nice take on how our own set of rules can turn against us. And about the ambivalent quality of freedom in a relationship.
The overall 4* star rating for this book comes from Mrs Manstey's View - a 17 page perfection. Wonderfully sad glimpse to the life of a woman who has lived, seen things and now just wants to live her days on the envronment she is used to. Wharton captures unfulfilled drams so masterfully:
"For many years she had cherished a desire to live in the country, to have a hen-house and a garden; but this longing had faded with age leaving only in the breast of the uncommunicative old woman a vague tenderness for plants and animals."
This sentence made me thought about the people I know and how many of their hobbies/interests/loved subjects are actually stillborns dreams. An true heartbraker from Wharton, again.
The overall 4* star rating for this book comes from Mrs Manstey's View - a 17 page perfection. Wonderfully sad glimpse to the life of a woman who has lived, seen things and now just wants to live her days on the envronment she is used to. Wharton captures unfulfilled drams so masterfully:
"For many years she had cherished a desire to live in the country, to have a hen-house and a garden; but this longing had faded with age leaving only in the breast of the uncommunicative old woman a vague tenderness for plants and animals."
This sentence made me thought about the people I know and how many of their hobbies/interests/loved subjects are actually stillborns dreams. An true heartbraker from Wharton, again.
November 26, 2017
No. 48 in Penguin's Little Black Classics series consists of two Wharton stories -- "Mrs. Manstey's View" and "The Reckoning." Both effectively draw readers in to inhabit lives they might not otherwise have considered, and offer sympathetic portraits of women whose fates, partly thanks to their own choices, might not ordinarily inspire much compassion. Mrs. Manstey's singular obsession, painted through the fine details of magnolia blossoms and appreciation of the light glinting off a church steeple, has an odd sort of beauty and poignancy, and Julia Westall's painful comprehension of the cost of the "new creed" she had proclaimed as justification for ending her first marriage is given depth beyond the simplistic "comeuppance" one might have anticipated. Both stories are excellent.
September 29, 2018
I loved reading Ethan Frome last year, so I was looking forward to this book. It contains two shorts stories. The Reckoning and Mrs. Manstey’s View. The first one is about the concept of marriage & letting go and the second one is about an old woman who likes to look outside the window. I enjoyed both but the latter one even more. Wharton's bleak but detailed style of writing is just really my thing!
January 23, 2025
Mrs Manstey’s View- 5/5
The Reckoning- 4/5
Overall 4.5
The Reckoning- 4/5
Overall 4.5
July 20, 2021
Wharton really sets the bar high, her style is subtle and her touch mellow, yet melancholy. Incredibly touching stories that reserve more recognition.
May 30, 2021
This edition combines two short stories by Edith Wharton, "Mrs Manstey's View" and "The Reckoning". The stories are about love, loss, loneliness and the institution of marriage.
“Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Juila was wounded in every fiber of her spirit.”
4 stars
“Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Juila was wounded in every fiber of her spirit.”
4 stars
September 5, 2017
I much preferred the first story, Mrs. Manstey’s View to the second, the collections namesake. Mrs Manstey is a lonely widow, who takes her only pleasure from the view of New York from her window. Wharton describes this view in it’s truly beautiful, albeit small, form, and familiarises us with Mrs Manstey’s pure love of it. When the view is threatened to be taken away from her, we see our poor widow take drastic action in her desperation and loss. It’s a very clever commentary on how the smallest thing in someone’s life can really be the most important.
The Reckoning itself is a quite amusing tale of how one’s own rules and ethics can become enemies with your needs and desires. The moral quandary the protagonist finds herself in is as delicious as it is heartbreaking, and truly underlines the contrariness of the human psyche.
Both stories well ahead of their time, they’re an excellent introduction in Wharton’s work. Another glorious addition to the Little Black Classics range.
The Reckoning itself is a quite amusing tale of how one’s own rules and ethics can become enemies with your needs and desires. The moral quandary the protagonist finds herself in is as delicious as it is heartbreaking, and truly underlines the contrariness of the human psyche.
Both stories well ahead of their time, they’re an excellent introduction in Wharton’s work. Another glorious addition to the Little Black Classics range.
August 4, 2015
Two perfectly formed, heartbreaking short stories from Wharton. In 'Mrs. Manstey's View', an ageing woman is driven to extreme measures to preserve one of her only pleasures: the garden view she enjoys from her room. 'The Reckoning' exposes the machinations at the heart of a relationship, as a wife comes to regret an agreement made with her husband years ago. Having also loved Wharton's ghost stories, I really must read more by her.
March 22, 2019
I love me some Edith Wharton, and this little collection made for a lovely refresher to her style of writing after nearly a year out. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to get into Wharton, because ALL the hallmarks of her writing are here. Divorce, adultery, interior design, New York, exposing the hypocrisy of Gilded Age society, lonely, misunderstood women... it's got it all.
I particularly liked the first (and shorter) story of the two included in here: 'Mrs Mantsey's View'. I found it very moving, even though very little happens in it (the main event of the story is someone building an extension to their house). Whereas a lot of Wharton's other works are about extravagance (and, often, the loss of this), this story felt to me like it was about the simpler, smaller pleasures in life, which are infinitely harder to replace, particularly when you are an old, largely house-bound widow with little else to do. It was a story dripping in sadness and sympathy, which is quite extraordinary given its length and contents. I was less blown away by 'The Reckoning', but, as it touched on many of my (and Wharton's) favourite themes, I still enjoyed it. I certainly have more of a taste to read more of Wharton's short fiction now than I did before and, as I'm really beginning to miss Wharton now that I've recovered from writing a dissertation on her, I don't imagine that it will be long before I dive into some. Overall, a great selection of stories for (re)introducing yourself to Wharton.
I particularly liked the first (and shorter) story of the two included in here: 'Mrs Mantsey's View'. I found it very moving, even though very little happens in it (the main event of the story is someone building an extension to their house). Whereas a lot of Wharton's other works are about extravagance (and, often, the loss of this), this story felt to me like it was about the simpler, smaller pleasures in life, which are infinitely harder to replace, particularly when you are an old, largely house-bound widow with little else to do. It was a story dripping in sadness and sympathy, which is quite extraordinary given its length and contents. I was less blown away by 'The Reckoning', but, as it touched on many of my (and Wharton's) favourite themes, I still enjoyed it. I certainly have more of a taste to read more of Wharton's short fiction now than I did before and, as I'm really beginning to miss Wharton now that I've recovered from writing a dissertation on her, I don't imagine that it will be long before I dive into some. Overall, a great selection of stories for (re)introducing yourself to Wharton.
June 13, 2021
This edition contains "The Reckoning" and "Mrs. Manstey's View".
The latter is an early work of Wharton's and I am genuinely impressed at her thematic coherence, compared to her body of work. It is a story about an old lady - woman, widow, aged - a heroine unlikely to be exciting by Victorian literature standards. And yet the author handles her perspective with respect and a bit of mischief, a certain tongue-in-cheekness, in what otherwise tends to be a melancholy tale.
"The Reckoning" has a more dramatic, twist-of-fate plot, and the subtlety of Edith Wharton as a thinker shines through. It is not the characters themselves I find myself urged by the author to relate to but their reaction to the unavoidable situation, the entanglement. This psychological realism is the narrative's key element, and the relativistic morality she employs adds to that effect.
A last note, on both stories; Wharton writes them a bit breathlessly while paying attention to detail, as if building to something akin to the psychological terror her ghost stories inspire. Whether this is indicative of force of habit - she wrote quite a few ghostly tales - or talent, it works.
The latter is an early work of Wharton's and I am genuinely impressed at her thematic coherence, compared to her body of work. It is a story about an old lady - woman, widow, aged - a heroine unlikely to be exciting by Victorian literature standards. And yet the author handles her perspective with respect and a bit of mischief, a certain tongue-in-cheekness, in what otherwise tends to be a melancholy tale.
"The Reckoning" has a more dramatic, twist-of-fate plot, and the subtlety of Edith Wharton as a thinker shines through. It is not the characters themselves I find myself urged by the author to relate to but their reaction to the unavoidable situation, the entanglement. This psychological realism is the narrative's key element, and the relativistic morality she employs adds to that effect.
A last note, on both stories; Wharton writes them a bit breathlessly while paying attention to detail, as if building to something akin to the psychological terror her ghost stories inspire. Whether this is indicative of force of habit - she wrote quite a few ghostly tales - or talent, it works.
May 27, 2024
These two short stories were so touching and beautiful! I love Wharton's style so much; it feels Austenesque but a little more modern and sharp. This was my introduction to Edith Wharton as I was wondering whether I'd like her novels; now, I'm sure I will, and one will definitely be on my TBR for this year!
As for the stories, they both touch on nuanced positions in marriage and do so in structurally interesting ways. 'The Reckoning' has a really clever structure and cultivated a beautiful dread throughout.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this if you're wondering whether or not to get into Wharton's work, or if you're looking for great twentieth-century female writers!
As for the stories, they both touch on nuanced positions in marriage and do so in structurally interesting ways. 'The Reckoning' has a really clever structure and cultivated a beautiful dread throughout.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this if you're wondering whether or not to get into Wharton's work, or if you're looking for great twentieth-century female writers!
December 13, 2022
I think it was a good read, but not something I would return to!
Published in 1902, this book is from the perspective of a woman facing the possibility of her second divorce. It’s interesting to watch her complex thoughts as she confronts her new reality—especially because of how controversial a divorce was in this era (only 3 in 1000 marriages ended in divorce in the 1890s). To think, little women was written just 30 years prior and Louisa May Alcott was told by her publishers that a female lead HAS to be married by the end to get her work to the printing press!
Published in 1902, this book is from the perspective of a woman facing the possibility of her second divorce. It’s interesting to watch her complex thoughts as she confronts her new reality—especially because of how controversial a divorce was in this era (only 3 in 1000 marriages ended in divorce in the 1890s). To think, little women was written just 30 years prior and Louisa May Alcott was told by her publishers that a female lead HAS to be married by the end to get her work to the printing press!
June 17, 2023
تاوان رمانی زیبا در جدال با عقاید است
عقایدی که طبق سن و عواطف انسان ها و خلاف قواعد دانش و آگاهی قابل تغییر است و هیچوقت به باور که در انتهای دانش رخ می دهد تبدیل نمی شود
عقایدی که طبق شرایط کنونی یک فرد و سود و ضررش برای زندگی اش می تواند قابل تغییر شود
تاوان حاصل نقاشی توهماتیست که در قاب عقاید برای خود بر دیوار مغزمان نصب کرده ایم
اگر این تابلو را دور نیندازیم دیوارمان همچنان جلوی پریدنمان را خواهد گرفت
به یاد داشته باشید باورها سرنوشت را می سازند نه عقاید
باورها حاصل دانش و تجربیات انسانی هستند و عقاید حاصل اتفاقات انتسابی
عقایدی که طبق سن و عواطف انسان ها و خلاف قواعد دانش و آگاهی قابل تغییر است و هیچوقت به باور که در انتهای دانش رخ می دهد تبدیل نمی شود
عقایدی که طبق شرایط کنونی یک فرد و سود و ضررش برای زندگی اش می تواند قابل تغییر شود
تاوان حاصل نقاشی توهماتیست که در قاب عقاید برای خود بر دیوار مغزمان نصب کرده ایم
اگر این تابلو را دور نیندازیم دیوارمان همچنان جلوی پریدنمان را خواهد گرفت
به یاد داشته باشید باورها سرنوشت را می سازند نه عقاید
باورها حاصل دانش و تجربیات انسانی هستند و عقاید حاصل اتفاقات انتسابی
January 22, 2022
nothing groundbreaking, but they were enjoyable reads (in a slightly depressing way)
July 7, 2022
Edith, I think I love you?
January 18, 2025
3.5 nothing crazy but really liked her writing!
July 15, 2015
Mini Review:
Every time I read something by Edith Wharton, I ask myself why I don't read more of her work - and then years go by before I stumble across her again. I'm so sorry, Wharton. You are a tremendous author, you really are, and I don't know why I haven't just committed to exploring your writing more thoroughly already.
Two short stories about women who find themselves abandoned and alone, and make one final attempt to put things right. Wonderful.
Every time I read something by Edith Wharton, I ask myself why I don't read more of her work - and then years go by before I stumble across her again. I'm so sorry, Wharton. You are a tremendous author, you really are, and I don't know why I haven't just committed to exploring your writing more thoroughly already.
Two short stories about women who find themselves abandoned and alone, and make one final attempt to put things right. Wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews