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Roman Fever and Other Stories
These short works display Wharton's talent as a satirist "skilled at dissecting the elements of emotional subtleties, moral ambiguities, and the implications of social constrictions" (Cythina Griffin Wolfe, from the Introduction).
238 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1934
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2624 people want to read
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,430 books5,245 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 138 reviews
February 7, 2022
I had a blast reading this collection. Wharton skewers upper class society and its contrivances brilliantly. She wrote these stories between 1899 and 1934 and I preferred the later stories. Roman Fever (1934) is a masterpiece.
April 7, 2010
I haven't read Edith Wharton since high school. I don't even remember what we read.
A colleague stopped by my desk at school last week, and said his wife put Roman Fever into his hands and told him to read it.
He was amazed:
1) that he had never heard of this jewel and,
2) at the cruelty of women.
He piqued my interest.
I checked our catalog and we had it, so I threw it into my bag. A few nights later I picked it up while I was waiting for the evening news to start. I never saw Brian Williams that night.
How is it possible that I had never heard of this short story? Two middle aged women, life-long friends, sitting on a terrace in Rome, overlooking the Palatine at sunset, and reminiscing over their shared youth. Their two daughters, one a lovely angel and the other a brilliant spark of glamor and laughter, have left their mothers to their knitting, and are off to do exciting things with their evening.
Widows, their lives revolve around daughters who don't require the chaperoning they themselves had experienced as young women in Rome. Time hangs heavy. And in the golden sun of that late afternoon, secrets begin to slip out. Jealousy. Past betrayal. And then came the last line of the story. I was stunned, taken completely and totally by surprise, almost breathless. I shut the book, took off my glasses and sat still, taking in the implications of the final sentence. And then I opened the book and read it again.
The next day I tracked down my colleague and we compared observations, talking over one another in our enthusiasm, our words crowding out the noise of the hallway as the bell rang and students swarmed the halls between classes. When he told me Roman Fever was part of the English curriculum I was elated!
This afternoon I was walking down the hallway in the English wing, and as I passed a full classroom I heard a teacher yell out. She had paused her class and was calling to me "I heard you read Roman Fever!" Spinning on my heel I raced back to the class and 23 freshmen turned to look at me.
"Edith Wharton! Who knew?" my hands were out, palms up, demanding an explanation.
"I KNOW!" she exclaimed. "Were you surprised?"
"Still recovering. I can't believe I never read this. Edith, I hardly knew you!"
As I left the classroom I could hear the teacher saying "You see!" with a note of victory in her voice. "Mrs. Cicchetti LOVED it!"
For a moment I felt like those ladies on the terrace. The twists and surprises of life give you new eyes. If I had read Roman Fever in high school, would it have moved me in the same way? Because, you see, I have become that lady on the terrace with her knitting. It is now my glorious daughter dancing off into her future, while I am settled in my present. Perhaps Edith Wharton needs to be read at different stages of life, through different lenses of experience, to be truly appreciated.
What a joy, to be taken so totally by surprise by a story.
A colleague stopped by my desk at school last week, and said his wife put Roman Fever into his hands and told him to read it.
He was amazed:
1) that he had never heard of this jewel and,
2) at the cruelty of women.
He piqued my interest.
I checked our catalog and we had it, so I threw it into my bag. A few nights later I picked it up while I was waiting for the evening news to start. I never saw Brian Williams that night.
How is it possible that I had never heard of this short story? Two middle aged women, life-long friends, sitting on a terrace in Rome, overlooking the Palatine at sunset, and reminiscing over their shared youth. Their two daughters, one a lovely angel and the other a brilliant spark of glamor and laughter, have left their mothers to their knitting, and are off to do exciting things with their evening.
Widows, their lives revolve around daughters who don't require the chaperoning they themselves had experienced as young women in Rome. Time hangs heavy. And in the golden sun of that late afternoon, secrets begin to slip out. Jealousy. Past betrayal. And then came the last line of the story. I was stunned, taken completely and totally by surprise, almost breathless. I shut the book, took off my glasses and sat still, taking in the implications of the final sentence. And then I opened the book and read it again.
The next day I tracked down my colleague and we compared observations, talking over one another in our enthusiasm, our words crowding out the noise of the hallway as the bell rang and students swarmed the halls between classes. When he told me Roman Fever was part of the English curriculum I was elated!
This afternoon I was walking down the hallway in the English wing, and as I passed a full classroom I heard a teacher yell out. She had paused her class and was calling to me "I heard you read Roman Fever!" Spinning on my heel I raced back to the class and 23 freshmen turned to look at me.
"Edith Wharton! Who knew?" my hands were out, palms up, demanding an explanation.
"I KNOW!" she exclaimed. "Were you surprised?"
"Still recovering. I can't believe I never read this. Edith, I hardly knew you!"
As I left the classroom I could hear the teacher saying "You see!" with a note of victory in her voice. "Mrs. Cicchetti LOVED it!"
For a moment I felt like those ladies on the terrace. The twists and surprises of life give you new eyes. If I had read Roman Fever in high school, would it have moved me in the same way? Because, you see, I have become that lady on the terrace with her knitting. It is now my glorious daughter dancing off into her future, while I am settled in my present. Perhaps Edith Wharton needs to be read at different stages of life, through different lenses of experience, to be truly appreciated.
What a joy, to be taken so totally by surprise by a story.
April 29, 2021
I always forget how much I love Edith Wharton until I read her again!
April 19, 2022
An exquisite collection of short stories, Roman Fever captures the passions and constraints of high society during and after the Gilded Age. Wharton's characters are complex, and each story resonates emotionally. I particularly loved Roman Fever and After Holbein.
August 16, 2019
Wharton is a master to be read slowly and savored.
Clearly, she was a woman born 100 years before her time, chafed by the rules society placed on her. I can feel her struggling like a bird captured in a cage. I have yet to find an American author that describes the restrictions of High Society better. Frankly, it's chilling. Sadly, I also found threads of current day realties in Xingu. It seems somethings are timeless.
Loved, loved, loved this book .
Clearly, she was a woman born 100 years before her time, chafed by the rules society placed on her. I can feel her struggling like a bird captured in a cage. I have yet to find an American author that describes the restrictions of High Society better. Frankly, it's chilling. Sadly, I also found threads of current day realties in Xingu. It seems somethings are timeless.
Loved, loved, loved this book .
October 7, 2022
Roman Fever and Other Stories marked my introduction to Edith Wharton, a writer whose reputation I had been aware of for years. Though the content of some of the short stories was hard to relate to, the quality of the writing was impressive.
September 13, 2010
There is nothing much you can say about a classic. A classic is a classic for a reason. Edith Wharton is undeniably one of the best American writers and this book of short stories is another proof of it. It is a mark of a true talent to be able in a matter of 20-25 pages to reveal both deep nature of characters and expose society follies. Each story is a masterpiece which leaves you with a deeper understanding of suffocating restrictions of 19th century America and complexities of human nature. This book is a must read for anyone who appreciates quality literature.
Reading challenge: #7
Reading challenge: #7
December 27, 2020
Though I taught Flannery O’Connor stories as the best ever written, Wharton’s title story here competes, with the greatest ending ever. (Must avoid spoiler.) Roman fever was the warning of grandparents— probably malaria back then. The next generation warned kids not to go out for romantic entanglements. For Mrs Ansley in this story, prone to illness, she was warned not to go out after 4 PM, especially not to go out at night to the Coliseum where, though locked, lovers found admittance with bribes. Before her marriage, Mrs. A had been invited to that architectural ruin by the boyfriend, later to be the successful Wall Street lawyer, of the other woman here, who became Slade’s wife: but Mrs. Slade in fact had written the invite, assumed she had fooled the smaller woman, who was more beautiful in youth.
Here EW elucidates the secret envy of old friends. Each feels, “she was rather sorry for her”(9). Wharton writes gems, like,
“Suddenly the air was full of that deep clangor of bells which periodically covers Rome with a roof of silver”(10).
“It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in mid-heaven”(13)
and, “The clear heaven overhead was emptied of its gold. Dusk spread over it..”(18)
All Wharton’s stories display her European upbringing, even touring a French border town during WWI (See my review of her travel book). The cover on my 1993 edition features a Parisian painting, (woman with “Cigarette” by Lebasque, Musée d’Orsay). Every story features society women in various competitive encounters, and of course Wharton’s house in the Berkshires, The Mount, gives expression to her status, including literary (she rode, conversed with Henry James in his early motorcar). Wharton and James are truly international, while Hemingway, writing in Italy and Paris, comes to us as quintessentially American.
More hilarious than the great first story, the second, Xingu, exposes society women who restrict their Lunch Club to six. They assign books to read—avoiding the amusing (thus, the great). The latest admitee to the group, Mrs Roby, doesn’t read the work assigned, by the famous author who’s visiting. Yet she manages to confound that author, and indeed the whole group of six. Mrs. Leveret carries a pocket “Appropriate Allusions,” and can quote several until the group meets, when she can only recall one, from the Book of Job, which she has failed to find occasion for, though Melville did, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?”(30) Adding to the satire, EW here compares social conversation to war, “Miss Van Vluyck resolved to carry the war into the enemy’s camp”(35).
“The Last Asset,” later in the collection, focuses on an older man who’s lived in Paris forever, despite shabby clothes, and typically American, knows no French, asks for the bill, “Gassong! L’addition, silver play” Garçon, l’addition, si vous plais (155). He is small and bald, eats at a low-cost place (rather like where we ate near Chariot d’Or decades ago, croque messieurs and a vin deux franc). Keeping obscure, he reads one local paper for examples of human folly, rather as I read the Venice’s Il Gazzetino, now online, but years ago newsprint, when living on the Lido, researching my books on Giordano Bruno. Garnett, his compadre at the low-cost place, knows a Mrs. Newell from NYC, who overspends and depends on her aristocratic acquaintances to put her up in the UK and France. Suddenly she needs her daughter’s dislocated father, since her daughter Hermy, Hermione, has landed a great French catch, an aristocrat no less. But the French require both parents at the marriage. Will the small, penniless father show up?
The next story, “After Holbein,” shall end my review. Mrs. Jaspar, scion of society decades ago, features here with nurse and maid Lavinia. She uses the names of her early servants for her current ones, though they have changed. She insists on bringing out her expensive jewels from her safe—to which only the Butler knows the combination—in order to entertain dozens at her grand table, dozens who no longer arrive. Nor are the invitations she composed sent. The table is no longer set with gold plate, though the famous chandelier still hangs.
Mrs. Jaspar criticizes her current servants,
“‘Lavinia! My fan, my gloves, my handkerchief…how often do I have to tell you?
I used to have the perfect maid—-‘
Lavinia’s eyes brimmed, ‘That was me, madam.’”
Of this scene, the nurse Cress told her friends, “To watch the two of them is better than any circus”(214).
But the story begins with the most prominent of her guests, Anson Warley, small and witty years ago, so much invited that he gave up her grand parties “declining the boredom” as he told friends, hoping she would not hear. At any rate, Mr Warley accepts an invitation, finally, and is received for a dinner of mashed potato and spinach with wine, though not the vintages declared, and the food served on mere kitchen plates. I should note, though not specific to this story, that Wharton’s favorite adjective may be “petrified.”
Here EW elucidates the secret envy of old friends. Each feels, “she was rather sorry for her”(9). Wharton writes gems, like,
“Suddenly the air was full of that deep clangor of bells which periodically covers Rome with a roof of silver”(10).
“It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in mid-heaven”(13)
and, “The clear heaven overhead was emptied of its gold. Dusk spread over it..”(18)
All Wharton’s stories display her European upbringing, even touring a French border town during WWI (See my review of her travel book). The cover on my 1993 edition features a Parisian painting, (woman with “Cigarette” by Lebasque, Musée d’Orsay). Every story features society women in various competitive encounters, and of course Wharton’s house in the Berkshires, The Mount, gives expression to her status, including literary (she rode, conversed with Henry James in his early motorcar). Wharton and James are truly international, while Hemingway, writing in Italy and Paris, comes to us as quintessentially American.
More hilarious than the great first story, the second, Xingu, exposes society women who restrict their Lunch Club to six. They assign books to read—avoiding the amusing (thus, the great). The latest admitee to the group, Mrs Roby, doesn’t read the work assigned, by the famous author who’s visiting. Yet she manages to confound that author, and indeed the whole group of six. Mrs. Leveret carries a pocket “Appropriate Allusions,” and can quote several until the group meets, when she can only recall one, from the Book of Job, which she has failed to find occasion for, though Melville did, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?”(30) Adding to the satire, EW here compares social conversation to war, “Miss Van Vluyck resolved to carry the war into the enemy’s camp”(35).
“The Last Asset,” later in the collection, focuses on an older man who’s lived in Paris forever, despite shabby clothes, and typically American, knows no French, asks for the bill, “Gassong! L’addition, silver play” Garçon, l’addition, si vous plais (155). He is small and bald, eats at a low-cost place (rather like where we ate near Chariot d’Or decades ago, croque messieurs and a vin deux franc). Keeping obscure, he reads one local paper for examples of human folly, rather as I read the Venice’s Il Gazzetino, now online, but years ago newsprint, when living on the Lido, researching my books on Giordano Bruno. Garnett, his compadre at the low-cost place, knows a Mrs. Newell from NYC, who overspends and depends on her aristocratic acquaintances to put her up in the UK and France. Suddenly she needs her daughter’s dislocated father, since her daughter Hermy, Hermione, has landed a great French catch, an aristocrat no less. But the French require both parents at the marriage. Will the small, penniless father show up?
The next story, “After Holbein,” shall end my review. Mrs. Jaspar, scion of society decades ago, features here with nurse and maid Lavinia. She uses the names of her early servants for her current ones, though they have changed. She insists on bringing out her expensive jewels from her safe—to which only the Butler knows the combination—in order to entertain dozens at her grand table, dozens who no longer arrive. Nor are the invitations she composed sent. The table is no longer set with gold plate, though the famous chandelier still hangs.
Mrs. Jaspar criticizes her current servants,
“‘Lavinia! My fan, my gloves, my handkerchief…how often do I have to tell you?
I used to have the perfect maid—-‘
Lavinia’s eyes brimmed, ‘That was me, madam.’”
Of this scene, the nurse Cress told her friends, “To watch the two of them is better than any circus”(214).
But the story begins with the most prominent of her guests, Anson Warley, small and witty years ago, so much invited that he gave up her grand parties “declining the boredom” as he told friends, hoping she would not hear. At any rate, Mr Warley accepts an invitation, finally, and is received for a dinner of mashed potato and spinach with wine, though not the vintages declared, and the food served on mere kitchen plates. I should note, though not specific to this story, that Wharton’s favorite adjective may be “petrified.”
August 4, 2020
Very rarely do I read a short story collection that is this charming and engrossing all the way through. Wharton's characters are satirical exaggerations of certain characteristics, but never are they taken too far. They still feel real, interesting, and layered even while certain aspects of their personalities are used narratively to provide societal commentary. The stories are engaging beyond their message, which gets the message across even more effectively than if I were too focused on what I was meant to learn.
My favorite story is either "The Other Two" or "Other Times" (I don't remember the french for it, lol). Both had main characters who were kind, well meaning people in a world destined to move past and take advantage of them. Wharton wrote about divorce in this volume a lot, specifically about how times are changing and divorce is becoming much more accepted by society. These two stories in particular dealt with the clash between old values that don't agree with new opinions, and the traditional need for politeness that keeps more traditional people quiet in the face of new rules. These differences were deftly handled from a variety of viewpoints- something which I think few authors take time to address. Each story was beautifully written and poignant. A must read, and a gorgeous introduction to Wharton's style.
My favorite story is either "The Other Two" or "Other Times" (I don't remember the french for it, lol). Both had main characters who were kind, well meaning people in a world destined to move past and take advantage of them. Wharton wrote about divorce in this volume a lot, specifically about how times are changing and divorce is becoming much more accepted by society. These two stories in particular dealt with the clash between old values that don't agree with new opinions, and the traditional need for politeness that keeps more traditional people quiet in the face of new rules. These differences were deftly handled from a variety of viewpoints- something which I think few authors take time to address. Each story was beautifully written and poignant. A must read, and a gorgeous introduction to Wharton's style.
June 29, 2010
I enjoyed this collection of what are considered some of Edith Wharton's finest short stories so much that I read it all over again, right after reading it the first time.
Some of the themes are familiar, such as people's sense of identity and social acceptance in upper-class society, but there is a large range of storylines, many of which deal with marital relationships and their various endings.
Wharton doesn't waste space on overly detailed descriptions of places or things; she zooms right into the heart of the matter. An outstanding collection of writing that I believe will stay with the reader for a long time after the last page is turned.
Some of the themes are familiar, such as people's sense of identity and social acceptance in upper-class society, but there is a large range of storylines, many of which deal with marital relationships and their various endings.
Wharton doesn't waste space on overly detailed descriptions of places or things; she zooms right into the heart of the matter. An outstanding collection of writing that I believe will stay with the reader for a long time after the last page is turned.
July 13, 2025
Story titled Xingu? I'll reveal Xingu is a river in Brazil, not a philosophy, language, ritual or something best whispered about. Wharton most charming, subtle, satiric here.
March 26, 2010
This made me love Wharton all over again after a couple of disappointing novels. The standout here is "Xingu", which is a scathingly brilliant, utterly wonderful take-down of pretentious society matrons whose literary club is giving a luncheon for a famous author. I also especially liked "After Holbein", a rather creepy tale of two elderly socialites, and "The Angel at the Grave", about a woman who has devoted her whole life to the care of her dead grandfather's house, papers, and reputation.
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March 25, 2017The short story Roman Fever first appeared in 1934 – although this particular collection wasn’t published until 1964 these stories come from across the long period in which Edith Wharton was writing. I assume, therefore, that these stories probably do appear in collections first published during Wharton’s lifetime.
The title story of this collection also appears in The Persephone book of short stories – memorable for its final line – it is the perfect story to start off this little collection, and one I was very happy to revisit. It is a little piece of perfection from Edith Wharton. Two middle ages matrons; Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, are in Rome with their daughters, the two women don’t move from their position on a terrace overlooking the city they each have reason to remember from their youth.
“ ‘I always used to think’ Mrs Slade continued, ‘that our mothers had a much more difficult job than our grandmothers. When Roman fever stalked the streets it must have been comparatively easy to gather in the girls at the danger hour; but when you and I were young, with such beauty calling us, and the spice of disobedience thrown in, and no worse risk than catching cold during the cool hour after sunset, the mothers used to be put to it to keep us in – didn’t they?’
She turned again toward Mrs Ansley, but the latter had reached a delicate point in her knitting. ‘One, two, three – slip two; yes, they must have been she assented without looking up.”
The two women have known each other many years, first as young women brought to Rome by their mothers, and later living on the same street in New York as married women. Their friendship is gradually revealed to exist only superficially. While their daughters go off together to explore the city, to have fun, the older women stay behind, knitting rolled up in their bags, reminiscing over past days. It’s a masterly example of subtlety, as the true nature of Grace and Alida’s jealousies and a long-held secret are unearthed through their conversation.
The remaining stories were all new to me, they are all excellent in their way, but although there are only eight in the collection, I won’t be discussing each of them. Famous for her stories depicting the upper echelons of New York society, the themes Wharton explores in these stories feel very familiar. Many of these stories show the contradictions in a society of slowly shifting mores. The daughters of women whose lives were once so narrowed by convention, find their lives easier, their lives less judged than their mothers’. In others Wharton details the absurdities of the conventional society she was a part of.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/...
The title story of this collection also appears in The Persephone book of short stories – memorable for its final line – it is the perfect story to start off this little collection, and one I was very happy to revisit. It is a little piece of perfection from Edith Wharton. Two middle ages matrons; Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, are in Rome with their daughters, the two women don’t move from their position on a terrace overlooking the city they each have reason to remember from their youth.
“ ‘I always used to think’ Mrs Slade continued, ‘that our mothers had a much more difficult job than our grandmothers. When Roman fever stalked the streets it must have been comparatively easy to gather in the girls at the danger hour; but when you and I were young, with such beauty calling us, and the spice of disobedience thrown in, and no worse risk than catching cold during the cool hour after sunset, the mothers used to be put to it to keep us in – didn’t they?’
She turned again toward Mrs Ansley, but the latter had reached a delicate point in her knitting. ‘One, two, three – slip two; yes, they must have been she assented without looking up.”
The two women have known each other many years, first as young women brought to Rome by their mothers, and later living on the same street in New York as married women. Their friendship is gradually revealed to exist only superficially. While their daughters go off together to explore the city, to have fun, the older women stay behind, knitting rolled up in their bags, reminiscing over past days. It’s a masterly example of subtlety, as the true nature of Grace and Alida’s jealousies and a long-held secret are unearthed through their conversation.
The remaining stories were all new to me, they are all excellent in their way, but although there are only eight in the collection, I won’t be discussing each of them. Famous for her stories depicting the upper echelons of New York society, the themes Wharton explores in these stories feel very familiar. Many of these stories show the contradictions in a society of slowly shifting mores. The daughters of women whose lives were once so narrowed by convention, find their lives easier, their lives less judged than their mothers’. In others Wharton details the absurdities of the conventional society she was a part of.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/...
February 27, 2017
Roman Fever and Other Stories includes eight intriguing, surprising and brilliant short stories. They describe the society of the time they were written, the changes that were going on, in a real but comical way. The stories are just the right length, they start kind of suddenly, without any introductions, so it takes a few pages to understand what´s happening and they end a bit suddenly as well, the reader has to figure out the solution on her/his own, which I quite liked. Wharton offered me exactly the kind of social criticism and drama that I enjoy reading about. I can´t wait to see what she can accomplish in a longer novel form.
If I´d have to choose my favorite stories they´d be Roman Fever, The Other Two, The Angel at the Grave and After Albein. Though it is extremely rare to come across such an evenly good collection - I very much liked each of the stories, there were no big differences in my enjoyment of them. So this truly was a fantastic way to get acquainted with a new author, one that I´ll most certainly read more from in the future!
If I´d have to choose my favorite stories they´d be Roman Fever, The Other Two, The Angel at the Grave and After Albein. Though it is extremely rare to come across such an evenly good collection - I very much liked each of the stories, there were no big differences in my enjoyment of them. So this truly was a fantastic way to get acquainted with a new author, one that I´ll most certainly read more from in the future!
November 1, 2011
I LOVE ROMAN FEVER! Though I can be impartial to short stories, when I read this for class, I fell in love with it. I think I connect with it most because I have a childhood friend who always seemed to have everything, every opportunity, everything handed to her, and she walked all over her friends, including me, taking every advantage that came her way. So, when I read this story, I couldn't help but laugh, thinking Mrs. Ansley had the perfect revenge. I have no interest in seeking my own vengeance, but it was almost like just reading the story, and making the connection that I did, was my own little way of finally getting the upper hand.
September 23, 2023
02/2013
Wharton's writing is so sharp and modern seeming if you changed the setting and period details much of it would work today with it's brilliant psychological observations. I particularly loved the story Xochi. Like any book of stories I didn't love every one but many were terrific.
Wharton's writing is so sharp and modern seeming if you changed the setting and period details much of it would work today with it's brilliant psychological observations. I particularly loved the story Xochi. Like any book of stories I didn't love every one but many were terrific.
March 12, 2018
Another solid selection by Edith Wharton.
Of the 8, I had previously read 3 in another collection.
The title entry, Roman Fever, appears to be the overwhelming favorite.
A story of two widows, also lifelong friends, on a balcony in Rome,
talking about their two daughters, and their own young lives in Rome.
I found it interesting how so many readers were shocked by the ending.
After Holbein took some interesting twists and turns before settling into a very apt ending.
And in The Angel at the Grave, the triumph of a life not wasted.
Of the 8, I had previously read 3 in another collection.
The title entry, Roman Fever, appears to be the overwhelming favorite.
A story of two widows, also lifelong friends, on a balcony in Rome,
talking about their two daughters, and their own young lives in Rome.
I found it interesting how so many readers were shocked by the ending.
After Holbein took some interesting twists and turns before settling into a very apt ending.
And in The Angel at the Grave, the triumph of a life not wasted.
October 8, 2025
ROMAN FEVER (20 pp.) 1934
The title story is the first one and is an insightful look into a friendship between two upper class New Yorker widows in their 40s while on a trip to Rome, a place both ladies have been before. The story takes place entirely at a restaurant with a gorgeous view of Rome, including the Colosseum.
Mrs. Alida Slade and Mrs. Ashley are lunching while their 20s daughters Jenny Slade and Barbara Ashley go off gallivanting with some aviators they have met.
The story involves the two longtime friends discussing their daughter’s personalities and previous trips to Rome when eventually conversation turns to a long ago trip when the two ladies were about their daughters’ age. Secrets are revealed and it all culminates in a very entertaining ending
I very much enjoyed this examination of long-term friends looking back on the past and its impact of the present. I am amazed that Wharton could pack such high quality characterization and plot into a 20 page one-scene story. My pleasure may have been enhanced by my age, as I am currently doing much of that type of reminiscing with a group of high school friends. It may not be as appealing to younger readers. I note that it was published in 1934, when Wharton was 72. Even without such enhancement, though, this story still contains such intriguing progressive reveals of both plot and character that I think it is objectively entertaining. A well-crafted short story.
I rate it as 5 stars
XINGU (35 pp.) 1911
This was a fun read. It’s a satire of a distinguished upper-crust ladies’ book club as they have a famous writer visit their meeting. The dialogue between the six members and the author accompanied by the inner monologues of the participants as they all try to act intelligent and knowledgeable made a fun and interesting read that works as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek mystery too. This is Wharton at her socially satirical best. I can see why it is a favorite to use as a stand-alone story or in anthologies.
I rate it as 4.7 stars
THE OTHER TWO (30 pp.) 1904
This is another very good short story. The story begins as our protagonist, mid-30s wealthy New York Investment Broker Mr. Waythorn, as he is called back from his honeymoon with his lovely mid-30s socialite wife due to the illness of his stepdaughter Lily Haskett, Mrs. Waythorn’s daughter from her first marriage. Social and professional circumstances soon bring Waythorn into contact with Mrs. Waythorn’s husbands from her first marriage, Mr. Haskett, and her second marriage, Mr. Varick. These are the titled “Other Two.” Waythorn’s inner monologue provides much interesting insight and character reveals.
The plotting is well done and, while the subject matter is dealt with seriously at first, I gradually grew into a humorous grin at the proceedings. I thought it interesting that when referring to the adult characters informally, without a Mr. or Mrs., they were called by their last names rather than by any first names. Another well-done story.
I rate it as 4.3 stars
SOULS BELATED (40 pp.) 1899
This story is about the relationship dynamics between Lydia Tillotson, the wife of a rich New Yorker and Ralph Gannett, a young writer and the man she has left her husband for. The couple ran off to Europe and toured Sicily, Dalmatia, Transylvania and Southern Italy and are now on a train through northern Italy as they search find a place where Gannett can start writing again. Gannett wishes to marry her after she gets divorced and Lydia does not want a marriage.
They find a hotel on the Italian lakes that suits them, but it is a hotel whose social propriety is enforced by the annual resident Lady Susan. While at the hotel. Garnett and Lydia face issues regarding their marital status, putting on a false face to others, and how best to resolve these issues and their relationship status.
While I appreciated the discussions and portrayal of the societal issues at the heart of the couple’s dilemma, my enjoyment of the story was limited by my failure to empathize with Lydia’s thoughts, attitudes and actions. I didn’t dislike her, I just couldn’t really relate to her. I felt more empathy with Garnett but he has a secondary role and it is Lydia who is our protagonist.
I rate it 4.0 stars.
THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE (26 pp.) 1901
This relatively brief short story is about Paulina Anson, the granddaughter of Orestes Anson, a philosopher/scientist whose family estate, upon his death, has become an informal museum for his many followers who revere him. Paulina's mother, Orestes daughter, was estranged from her family. But upon her mother's death, Paulina comes to live at the family estate with her grandmother and two aunts. Paulina falls into the role of taking care of Orestes legacy as she is the only Anson with the intellectual capacity to understand and appreciate Orestes teaching. The story deals with some events in the 20+ years following Paulina’s arrival.
I thought this was very engaging as its setting and characters' relationships were different from other stories. It also had intriguing themes of a granddaughter’s reverence for a grandparent she didn’t know personally, personal versus familial duties and the fleeting versus surviving legendary status of scholars such as philosophers, authors, scientists, whose legacy is based on their writings. I found it enchanting in its themes, but slightly less so in its execution. A slow starting but ultimately great story that would have been even greater with more insight into Paulina’s thoughts. As with many a Thomas Hardy short story, upon finishing, I was left with a pleasant feeling of wistful melancholy.
I still rate it as 4.7 stars for its unique feel.
THE LAST ASSET (46 pp.) 1904
This story about Americans in Paris has a story set-up I found intriguing. The protagonist is American Paul Garnett, a newspaper correspondent based in London who makes several Paris excursions per year. Over time, Garnett has become friendly with an elderly American gentleman at the restaurant they both lunch at. Garnett has also become friendly with fellow London based American Mrs. Sam Newell, a diva-like society matron, and serves as her voluntary aide-de-camp whenever they are both in Paris. The story involves Garnett’s role in accomplishing a task for Mrs. Newell to help smooth the marriage ceremony between her daughter Hermy and a young man from a local high society French family. Events bring Garnett’s acquaintance with both the gentleman and Mrs. Garnett into play.
I thought this was another creative story with a great premise and great characterization.
I rate it as 4.3 stars.
AFTER HOLBEIN (34 pp.) 1928
This story is about the aging process, a theme that hits home for me. The main protagonist is aging socialite Anson Warley who, after a strange Jekyll and Hyde inner conflict in his younger years, becomes a regular and active member of New York society into his older years. A secondary character is the aging matronly New York societal hostess Mrs. Jaspar who has long hosted dinner parties. The story mainly tells of Warley’s development into his current state with brief glimpses of Mrs. Jaspar’s life until an ending where their lives get intertwined in a surprisingly poignant and well-crafted scene of a social event. This was another great story . Another great story in the collection.
I rate it as 4.3 stars.
AUTRES TEMPS (44 pp.) 1911)
This is the story of Mrs. Lidcote, who scandalously left her husband and ran off with another man some 18 years before the action of the story. She has been living alone in Italy for some time, but she is finally returning to New York to see her daughter, Leila, who has done much as Mrs. Lidcote did – divorced her husband and married her lover. Leila is living in her new country estate with her wealthy ex-husband who is seeking an ambassadorship. An intertwined side story revolves around Mrs. Lidcote relations with a long-time suitor with whom she renews a relationship.
The story revolves around Leila and Mrs. Lidcote’s relationship as she is being accepted into New York society amidst her mother’s long-term ostracization from it. Themes addressed include societal standards in who and how long they ostracize, whether the sins of the mother fall on the daughter, and a daughter’s comparative devotion to a parent and spouse.
I thought this was another well-written and well-developed story that shares some similarities with the plotting of Wharton’s 1925 novel A Mother’s Recompense. Mrs. Lidcote is a wonderful creation and the situations she faces seem real and intense even if they are so under the superficial standards of upper-class New York 1900s . Her experiences were poignant and I strongly empathized with her situation.
I really liked this story, including the recurrent use of the term ‘cut’ to describe the individual’s compliant enforcement of society’ ostracization.
I rate this as 4.7 stars
ROMAN FEVER AND OTHER STORIES- Overall Rating
My individual story rating average out to 4.5 stars. I am going to round up because the stories as a whole provided me with a definite 5 star reading experience. I love Wharton’s writing and the world she writes about with such incredible insight. Her themes may seem provincial and shallow to some but we all live life in societies and not as loners and the standards and methods of being involved in such societies are essential elements of life. I find the themes and insights transferrable between many societal levels. However, I do admit to a fascination with historical upper-class society and its standards as evidenced by my having the Forsyte Saga as my favorite reading experience. Trollope’s Pallisers series ranks up there too.
So I rate this collection as a whole as 5 stars.
My Ratings Of Wharton Novels I Have Read
5 Stars
The Age of Innocence 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
Old New York 1924
Roman Fever and Other Stories 1964 (individual stories published between 1899 and 1934)
4+ Stars
Ethan Frome 1911
The Custom of the Country 1913
The Glimpses of the Moon 1922
The Mother's Recompense 1925
4 Stars
The Touchstone 1900
Madame de Treymes 1906
The Fruit of the Tree 1907
Twilight Sleep 1927
The Children 1928
The Buccaneers 1938
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton 1937
3 stars
The House of Mirth 1905
Summer 1917
Bunner Sisters 1916
The title story is the first one and is an insightful look into a friendship between two upper class New Yorker widows in their 40s while on a trip to Rome, a place both ladies have been before. The story takes place entirely at a restaurant with a gorgeous view of Rome, including the Colosseum.
Mrs. Alida Slade and Mrs. Ashley are lunching while their 20s daughters Jenny Slade and Barbara Ashley go off gallivanting with some aviators they have met.
The story involves the two longtime friends discussing their daughter’s personalities and previous trips to Rome when eventually conversation turns to a long ago trip when the two ladies were about their daughters’ age. Secrets are revealed and it all culminates in a very entertaining ending
I very much enjoyed this examination of long-term friends looking back on the past and its impact of the present. I am amazed that Wharton could pack such high quality characterization and plot into a 20 page one-scene story. My pleasure may have been enhanced by my age, as I am currently doing much of that type of reminiscing with a group of high school friends. It may not be as appealing to younger readers. I note that it was published in 1934, when Wharton was 72. Even without such enhancement, though, this story still contains such intriguing progressive reveals of both plot and character that I think it is objectively entertaining. A well-crafted short story.
I rate it as 5 stars
XINGU (35 pp.) 1911
This was a fun read. It’s a satire of a distinguished upper-crust ladies’ book club as they have a famous writer visit their meeting. The dialogue between the six members and the author accompanied by the inner monologues of the participants as they all try to act intelligent and knowledgeable made a fun and interesting read that works as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek mystery too. This is Wharton at her socially satirical best. I can see why it is a favorite to use as a stand-alone story or in anthologies.
I rate it as 4.7 stars
THE OTHER TWO (30 pp.) 1904
This is another very good short story. The story begins as our protagonist, mid-30s wealthy New York Investment Broker Mr. Waythorn, as he is called back from his honeymoon with his lovely mid-30s socialite wife due to the illness of his stepdaughter Lily Haskett, Mrs. Waythorn’s daughter from her first marriage. Social and professional circumstances soon bring Waythorn into contact with Mrs. Waythorn’s husbands from her first marriage, Mr. Haskett, and her second marriage, Mr. Varick. These are the titled “Other Two.” Waythorn’s inner monologue provides much interesting insight and character reveals.
The plotting is well done and, while the subject matter is dealt with seriously at first, I gradually grew into a humorous grin at the proceedings. I thought it interesting that when referring to the adult characters informally, without a Mr. or Mrs., they were called by their last names rather than by any first names. Another well-done story.
I rate it as 4.3 stars
SOULS BELATED (40 pp.) 1899
This story is about the relationship dynamics between Lydia Tillotson, the wife of a rich New Yorker and Ralph Gannett, a young writer and the man she has left her husband for. The couple ran off to Europe and toured Sicily, Dalmatia, Transylvania and Southern Italy and are now on a train through northern Italy as they search find a place where Gannett can start writing again. Gannett wishes to marry her after she gets divorced and Lydia does not want a marriage.
They find a hotel on the Italian lakes that suits them, but it is a hotel whose social propriety is enforced by the annual resident Lady Susan. While at the hotel. Garnett and Lydia face issues regarding their marital status, putting on a false face to others, and how best to resolve these issues and their relationship status.
While I appreciated the discussions and portrayal of the societal issues at the heart of the couple’s dilemma, my enjoyment of the story was limited by my failure to empathize with Lydia’s thoughts, attitudes and actions. I didn’t dislike her, I just couldn’t really relate to her. I felt more empathy with Garnett but he has a secondary role and it is Lydia who is our protagonist.
I rate it 4.0 stars.
THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE (26 pp.) 1901
This relatively brief short story is about Paulina Anson, the granddaughter of Orestes Anson, a philosopher/scientist whose family estate, upon his death, has become an informal museum for his many followers who revere him. Paulina's mother, Orestes daughter, was estranged from her family. But upon her mother's death, Paulina comes to live at the family estate with her grandmother and two aunts. Paulina falls into the role of taking care of Orestes legacy as she is the only Anson with the intellectual capacity to understand and appreciate Orestes teaching. The story deals with some events in the 20+ years following Paulina’s arrival.
I thought this was very engaging as its setting and characters' relationships were different from other stories. It also had intriguing themes of a granddaughter’s reverence for a grandparent she didn’t know personally, personal versus familial duties and the fleeting versus surviving legendary status of scholars such as philosophers, authors, scientists, whose legacy is based on their writings. I found it enchanting in its themes, but slightly less so in its execution. A slow starting but ultimately great story that would have been even greater with more insight into Paulina’s thoughts. As with many a Thomas Hardy short story, upon finishing, I was left with a pleasant feeling of wistful melancholy.
I still rate it as 4.7 stars for its unique feel.
THE LAST ASSET (46 pp.) 1904
This story about Americans in Paris has a story set-up I found intriguing. The protagonist is American Paul Garnett, a newspaper correspondent based in London who makes several Paris excursions per year. Over time, Garnett has become friendly with an elderly American gentleman at the restaurant they both lunch at. Garnett has also become friendly with fellow London based American Mrs. Sam Newell, a diva-like society matron, and serves as her voluntary aide-de-camp whenever they are both in Paris. The story involves Garnett’s role in accomplishing a task for Mrs. Newell to help smooth the marriage ceremony between her daughter Hermy and a young man from a local high society French family. Events bring Garnett’s acquaintance with both the gentleman and Mrs. Garnett into play.
I thought this was another creative story with a great premise and great characterization.
I rate it as 4.3 stars.
AFTER HOLBEIN (34 pp.) 1928
This story is about the aging process, a theme that hits home for me. The main protagonist is aging socialite Anson Warley who, after a strange Jekyll and Hyde inner conflict in his younger years, becomes a regular and active member of New York society into his older years. A secondary character is the aging matronly New York societal hostess Mrs. Jaspar who has long hosted dinner parties. The story mainly tells of Warley’s development into his current state with brief glimpses of Mrs. Jaspar’s life until an ending where their lives get intertwined in a surprisingly poignant and well-crafted scene of a social event. This was another great story . Another great story in the collection.
I rate it as 4.3 stars.
AUTRES TEMPS (44 pp.) 1911)
This is the story of Mrs. Lidcote, who scandalously left her husband and ran off with another man some 18 years before the action of the story. She has been living alone in Italy for some time, but she is finally returning to New York to see her daughter, Leila, who has done much as Mrs. Lidcote did – divorced her husband and married her lover. Leila is living in her new country estate with her wealthy ex-husband who is seeking an ambassadorship. An intertwined side story revolves around Mrs. Lidcote relations with a long-time suitor with whom she renews a relationship.
The story revolves around Leila and Mrs. Lidcote’s relationship as she is being accepted into New York society amidst her mother’s long-term ostracization from it. Themes addressed include societal standards in who and how long they ostracize, whether the sins of the mother fall on the daughter, and a daughter’s comparative devotion to a parent and spouse.
I thought this was another well-written and well-developed story that shares some similarities with the plotting of Wharton’s 1925 novel A Mother’s Recompense. Mrs. Lidcote is a wonderful creation and the situations she faces seem real and intense even if they are so under the superficial standards of upper-class New York 1900s . Her experiences were poignant and I strongly empathized with her situation.
I really liked this story, including the recurrent use of the term ‘cut’ to describe the individual’s compliant enforcement of society’ ostracization.
I rate this as 4.7 stars
ROMAN FEVER AND OTHER STORIES- Overall Rating
My individual story rating average out to 4.5 stars. I am going to round up because the stories as a whole provided me with a definite 5 star reading experience. I love Wharton’s writing and the world she writes about with such incredible insight. Her themes may seem provincial and shallow to some but we all live life in societies and not as loners and the standards and methods of being involved in such societies are essential elements of life. I find the themes and insights transferrable between many societal levels. However, I do admit to a fascination with historical upper-class society and its standards as evidenced by my having the Forsyte Saga as my favorite reading experience. Trollope’s Pallisers series ranks up there too.
So I rate this collection as a whole as 5 stars.
My Ratings Of Wharton Novels I Have Read
5 Stars
The Age of Innocence 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
Old New York 1924
Roman Fever and Other Stories 1964 (individual stories published between 1899 and 1934)
4+ Stars
Ethan Frome 1911
The Custom of the Country 1913
The Glimpses of the Moon 1922
The Mother's Recompense 1925
4 Stars
The Touchstone 1900
Madame de Treymes 1906
The Fruit of the Tree 1907
Twilight Sleep 1927
The Children 1928
The Buccaneers 1938
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton 1937
3 stars
The House of Mirth 1905
Summer 1917
Bunner Sisters 1916
Read
October 5, 2009After the blood and guts of
Blood Meridian
, I needed to add a little civilization back into my reading life - and nobody does over-civilization like Edith Wharton. Whether they meet the challenge by laughing, crying, or overdosing on exhaustion and sleeping pills, her characters are beset on all sides by the constrictions of unimaginative convention - a force with which McCarthy's cowboys are entirely untroubled.
I have a mixed history with Wharton; I found The House of Mirth overwrought, and wouldn't have been inspired to read The Age of Innocence except that I ran across a pristine Norton edition of it for under ten dollars. (Would I read anything if given a free Norton edition of it? Probably anything but Walden.) When I finally got around to cracking it open, I was surprised at my hearty enjoyment: it's a later, more mature novel, and Wharton displays her delightful satiric edge to a far greater advantage. With more distance from her subjects, I felt she could both enjoy them more herself, and allow her reader a bit of breathing room. I felt the same way about the short story collection Roman Fever and Other Stories: Wharton is most enjoyable, to me, when she is in rollicking satirical mode, or at least writing drama with a satirical edge, rather than giving in to full-blown melodrama. One of my favorite stories, "Xingu," is a famous example of Wharton at her cutting, cackling best: a clique of haughty New York society matrons are looking forward to giving a luncheon for a famous female author, and lamenting the necessity of inviting their least fashionable member, as she's bound to spoil the atmosphere. She simply doesn't know how to behave, the ladies tell each other. Why, just the other day she was so outré as to ask Mrs. Plinth her personal opinion of the book they were discussing:
When the author in question turns out to be even more of a pill than her Lunch Club companions, Mrs. Roby manages to get her own by introducing "Xingu" as a topic of conversation: nobody knows what it is, but they're not willing to admit their ignorance, and hilarity ensues.
On a darker satirical note, I also loved "After Holbein," which is almost a ghost story but written about a still-living people. According to Hermione Lee's biography, Wharton loved ghost stories and wrote a number of them throughout her life, and "After Holbein" has many of the tell-tale conventions: huge mansions that used to be grand centers of entertainment, now mostly sheeted and run with a skeleton staff; a dark night; a past estrangement; the impression of a whole world that has slipped into the past. But rather than ghosts, this setting is populated by two ancient denizens of Old New York: Mrs. Jaspar, stroke victim and erstwhile society hostess, and the decrepit Anson Warley (based on Ward McAllister, the super-elite arbiter of Old New York Society and author of the list designating the members of "The 400" who would be invited to Mrs. Astor's yearly ball and therefore be "received"). While Mrs. Jaspar badgers her maid into preparing her, night after night, for the same dinner party she was to give on the eve of her stroke, Mr. Warley engages in an interior monologue about how many invitations he still receives, and how young he still feels. He's planning to go out this very night, despite the disapproval of his valet. He gloats to himself that he's still "in the running" - not like that fossilized Mrs. Jaspar, whom he remembers snubbing wittily in his youth to the delight of all his many society friends. He spares a moment to hope that his barbed witticism didn't get back to the lady herself, but can't be too bothered about it. He shakes off his valet and steps outside - only to forget which of his friends invited him to dine. The outcome of the night for both Mrs. Jaspar and Mr. Warley is deliciously creepy - much more so than if the two friends and rivals were actually coming back from the dead to haunt the dinner tables and ballrooms of their pasts. Their lives as living fossils also allows Wharton, writing from her home in Paris after having forsworn everything her characters stand for, to comment on the few remaining New Yorkers still yearning after the old ways, the old society - and more than that, to comment on people, like Anson Warley, who become so entrenched in their routines of pandering to others, that they are left with little or no inner life of their own. As a character in the final story implies, the only rational cure for over-civilization is to promote a rich inner life, and these relics of Old New York certainly don't have it:
There was another story in the collection that interested me for more personal reasons, although it was in Wharton's dramatic, rather than satirical, mode: "Souls Belated" tells of a woman, recently divorced, who wants to continue living with her lover unmarried, rather than attempt to rejoin their former stuffy, hypocritical society by accepting the state sanction of marriage a second time. I don't write about it much here, but I live in a long-term, committed relationship in which both I and my partner have chosen, for personal and political reasons, not to get married but to safeguard our legal rights in other ways. I've always felt uncomfortable with the cultural baggage around marriage, and it was fascinating to read a story featuring a character who had a related set of feelings. As you might imagine, it doesn't happen very often: there are scads of happy and unhappy marriages in literature, plenty of illicit love affairs and passionate flings, lots of unrequited love, and a few portraits of people who find themselves happier leading a single life, but not a lot of stories about the attempt to live in a caring, committed way outside the bounds of matrimony - especially when those attempts are chosen, rather than forced. (If you know of any, I would love to check them out.) Unfortunately for Wharton's characters, their particular attempt doesn't end very well: the woman's lover doesn't understand her unwillingness to marry him, and she finds, to her disgust, that they both care more about the opinion of Society than they imagined. Wharton's own attitude toward her protagonist, while sympathetic, seems to me slightly rueful at the woman's idealism. Still, it was an interesting and perceptive read, and made me think about how my own situation would have differed had I been born a century earlier - and, it goes without saying, wealthy.
Overall, this slim volume of shorts was just what the doctor ordered as an antidote to Cormac McCarthy - subtle and thoughtful, often melancholy, sometimes deliciously sardonic.
I have a mixed history with Wharton; I found The House of Mirth overwrought, and wouldn't have been inspired to read The Age of Innocence except that I ran across a pristine Norton edition of it for under ten dollars. (Would I read anything if given a free Norton edition of it? Probably anything but Walden.) When I finally got around to cracking it open, I was surprised at my hearty enjoyment: it's a later, more mature novel, and Wharton displays her delightful satiric edge to a far greater advantage. With more distance from her subjects, I felt she could both enjoy them more herself, and allow her reader a bit of breathing room. I felt the same way about the short story collection Roman Fever and Other Stories: Wharton is most enjoyable, to me, when she is in rollicking satirical mode, or at least writing drama with a satirical edge, rather than giving in to full-blown melodrama. One of my favorite stories, "Xingu," is a famous example of Wharton at her cutting, cackling best: a clique of haughty New York society matrons are looking forward to giving a luncheon for a famous female author, and lamenting the necessity of inviting their least fashionable member, as she's bound to spoil the atmosphere. She simply doesn't know how to behave, the ladies tell each other. Why, just the other day she was so outré as to ask Mrs. Plinth her personal opinion of the book they were discussing:
It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a breach of discipline. They all knew there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written to be read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's. Such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her house, was furnished with monumental "pieces" that were not meant to be disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, within her own province, each member's habits of thought should be respected. The meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of them."
When the author in question turns out to be even more of a pill than her Lunch Club companions, Mrs. Roby manages to get her own by introducing "Xingu" as a topic of conversation: nobody knows what it is, but they're not willing to admit their ignorance, and hilarity ensues.
On a darker satirical note, I also loved "After Holbein," which is almost a ghost story but written about a still-living people. According to Hermione Lee's biography, Wharton loved ghost stories and wrote a number of them throughout her life, and "After Holbein" has many of the tell-tale conventions: huge mansions that used to be grand centers of entertainment, now mostly sheeted and run with a skeleton staff; a dark night; a past estrangement; the impression of a whole world that has slipped into the past. But rather than ghosts, this setting is populated by two ancient denizens of Old New York: Mrs. Jaspar, stroke victim and erstwhile society hostess, and the decrepit Anson Warley (based on Ward McAllister, the super-elite arbiter of Old New York Society and author of the list designating the members of "The 400" who would be invited to Mrs. Astor's yearly ball and therefore be "received"). While Mrs. Jaspar badgers her maid into preparing her, night after night, for the same dinner party she was to give on the eve of her stroke, Mr. Warley engages in an interior monologue about how many invitations he still receives, and how young he still feels. He's planning to go out this very night, despite the disapproval of his valet. He gloats to himself that he's still "in the running" - not like that fossilized Mrs. Jaspar, whom he remembers snubbing wittily in his youth to the delight of all his many society friends. He spares a moment to hope that his barbed witticism didn't get back to the lady herself, but can't be too bothered about it. He shakes off his valet and steps outside - only to forget which of his friends invited him to dine. The outcome of the night for both Mrs. Jaspar and Mr. Warley is deliciously creepy - much more so than if the two friends and rivals were actually coming back from the dead to haunt the dinner tables and ballrooms of their pasts. Their lives as living fossils also allows Wharton, writing from her home in Paris after having forsworn everything her characters stand for, to comment on the few remaining New Yorkers still yearning after the old ways, the old society - and more than that, to comment on people, like Anson Warley, who become so entrenched in their routines of pandering to others, that they are left with little or no inner life of their own. As a character in the final story implies, the only rational cure for over-civilization is to promote a rich inner life, and these relics of Old New York certainly don't have it:
We're all imprisoned, of course - all of us middling people, who don't carry our freedom in our brains.
There was another story in the collection that interested me for more personal reasons, although it was in Wharton's dramatic, rather than satirical, mode: "Souls Belated" tells of a woman, recently divorced, who wants to continue living with her lover unmarried, rather than attempt to rejoin their former stuffy, hypocritical society by accepting the state sanction of marriage a second time. I don't write about it much here, but I live in a long-term, committed relationship in which both I and my partner have chosen, for personal and political reasons, not to get married but to safeguard our legal rights in other ways. I've always felt uncomfortable with the cultural baggage around marriage, and it was fascinating to read a story featuring a character who had a related set of feelings. As you might imagine, it doesn't happen very often: there are scads of happy and unhappy marriages in literature, plenty of illicit love affairs and passionate flings, lots of unrequited love, and a few portraits of people who find themselves happier leading a single life, but not a lot of stories about the attempt to live in a caring, committed way outside the bounds of matrimony - especially when those attempts are chosen, rather than forced. (If you know of any, I would love to check them out.) Unfortunately for Wharton's characters, their particular attempt doesn't end very well: the woman's lover doesn't understand her unwillingness to marry him, and she finds, to her disgust, that they both care more about the opinion of Society than they imagined. Wharton's own attitude toward her protagonist, while sympathetic, seems to me slightly rueful at the woman's idealism. Still, it was an interesting and perceptive read, and made me think about how my own situation would have differed had I been born a century earlier - and, it goes without saying, wealthy.
Overall, this slim volume of shorts was just what the doctor ordered as an antidote to Cormac McCarthy - subtle and thoughtful, often melancholy, sometimes deliciously sardonic.
March 5, 2021
Overall rating: 3.43.... Let's make it 3.5 stars lol.
I read this for my March 2021 challenge of only reading books by women writers for Women's History month! You can read more about my experience here!
Wharton's ability to make her characters say so many words but at the same time say absolutely nothing at all is really impressive. It's definitely a hallmark of Gilded Age American writing that is often quite hit or miss with me. While I really didn't care for The Age of Innocence, I had a far better time with these stories! So much so that I intend to keep this volume, which I never would have thought would happen. A very pleasant surprise.
Roman Fever - 2 stars
Well... that sure was a story.
I'm not entirely sure how they choose to order and title short story collections (even after three years of being on the editing board of my college lit mag and actually voting on publication order) because this was by far my least favorite of the collection. I could very well be in the minority, though.
Xingu - 4 stars
We love a spicy book club meeting.
The Other Two - 3.5 stars
A very interesting take on divorce and child custody in the early 20th c.
Souls Belated - 3 stars
The Angel at the Grave - 4.5 stars
A spooky House, a bookish woman, and expository text that self-references its own capitalization???? Omg yes.
The Last Asset - 3.5 stars
Okay WOW, what a ride!
After Holbein - 4 stars
That's one hell of an opening line.
Autres Temps - 3 stars
A story about messy social etiquette that I think would have benefited from being a bit shorter, but some very excellent lines in the last scene propped up the rating.
I read this for my March 2021 challenge of only reading books by women writers for Women's History month! You can read more about my experience here!
Wharton's ability to make her characters say so many words but at the same time say absolutely nothing at all is really impressive. It's definitely a hallmark of Gilded Age American writing that is often quite hit or miss with me. While I really didn't care for The Age of Innocence, I had a far better time with these stories! So much so that I intend to keep this volume, which I never would have thought would happen. A very pleasant surprise.
Roman Fever - 2 stars
Well... that sure was a story.
I'm not entirely sure how they choose to order and title short story collections (even after three years of being on the editing board of my college lit mag and actually voting on publication order) because this was by far my least favorite of the collection. I could very well be in the minority, though.
Xingu - 4 stars
We love a spicy book club meeting.
The Other Two - 3.5 stars
A very interesting take on divorce and child custody in the early 20th c.
Souls Belated - 3 stars
The Angel at the Grave - 4.5 stars
A spooky House, a bookish woman, and expository text that self-references its own capitalization???? Omg yes.
The Last Asset - 3.5 stars
Okay WOW, what a ride!
After Holbein - 4 stars
That's one hell of an opening line.
Autres Temps - 3 stars
A story about messy social etiquette that I think would have benefited from being a bit shorter, but some very excellent lines in the last scene propped up the rating.
Read
October 29, 2025PLACEHOLDER REVIEW
"Roman Fever" - two older ladies watch the sunset from the balcony of a restaurant in Rome, both soberly reflecting on their daughters (off to paint the town red), their friendship, their past visit to this city and other details, until the musing dredges up a (somewhat) forgotten point of contention between them... Wow, what a great read. Absolutely brutal last line! Incredibly deft sketching of the two women's characters, and a masterful deployment of information and misdirection.
"Roman Fever" - two older ladies watch the sunset from the balcony of a restaurant in Rome, both soberly reflecting on their daughters (off to paint the town red), their friendship, their past visit to this city and other details, until the musing dredges up a (somewhat) forgotten point of contention between them... Wow, what a great read. Absolutely brutal last line! Incredibly deft sketching of the two women's characters, and a masterful deployment of information and misdirection.
November 4, 2021
"Roman fever", "Xingu", and "Angel at the grave" are definite stand outs, exquisite storytelling that captivated me in a way that seldom short stories do. The rest, however, notoriously lacked in impact by contrast. Nonetheless, will revisit Wharton. Especially interested in her Ghost stories collection published by NYRB.
April 25, 2021
It’s very hard to rate a short story collection, but I loved every single one so this seemed appropriate.
March 17, 2024
thank you ashley for the book:)
truly a fabulous collection. i always forget how witty wharton’s writing can be—her commentary esp on societal propriety and pushing those boundaries is especially hilarious.
interspersed throughout are also very gentle moments of humaneness that i really appreciate; it’s usually caught in the little details of reflecting back that i find very touching.
truly a fabulous collection. i always forget how witty wharton’s writing can be—her commentary esp on societal propriety and pushing those boundaries is especially hilarious.
interspersed throughout are also very gentle moments of humaneness that i really appreciate; it’s usually caught in the little details of reflecting back that i find very touching.
Read
August 30, 2007The lead into the story sets an uneasy tone of distance between the two women. The author begins the story by showing us the two mothers sitting on a terrace of a roman restaurant. The distance is well represented in the text by the careful word choice, for example, in the lead the women “looked first at each other, and then down on the out spread glories of Palatine and the Form.” This looking at each other then looking out at the scene before them is the sort of thing that strangers or acquaintances would do. As the reader gets more into the story, the author again sets the distance between the two women, “perhaps we didn’t know much more about each other.” When Mrs. Ansley says this to Mrs. Slade, it conveys to the reader that Mrs. Ansley is hiding something from her companion. Again, the author shows us space between the two, “for a few moments the two ladies, who had been intimate since childhood, reflected on how little they knew each other.”
As the two women reflect, they both stereotype each other into neat little molds in their heads without ever scratching below the surface. Their friendship exists only on a superficial level. Mrs. Slade as described by Mrs. Ansley was beautiful and vibrant, full of life and excitement in her past; but in her present she is depressed and “full of failures and mistakes.” Mrs. Ansley by Mrs. Slades description is beautiful yet dull, in past and present, “Museum specimens of old New York.” Mrs. Slade spends a lot of time contemplating her past and present relations with Mrs. Ansley. She also spends a lot of time being jealous of Mrs. Ansley’s daughter because she is more exciting then her own daughter. We learn that the two women after getting married around the same time also lived in New York across the street from one another. The two women’s husbands also died around the same time. These superficial similarities seem to be all that their friendship is based upon: “The similarity of their lot had again drawn them together.” They had no real conversation flow between them, as you expect old friends to have. There are no specific memories of anything that the two of them did together in the past or present of the entire text. Another good example of how little they knew of each other: “So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope.” When you look through the wrong end of a telescope you see very little of the big picture.
The author’s focus is on the tone of uneasiness, which finally makes its full-blown entrance as the two women sit in silence on the terrace. Mrs. Slade, the longer she sits, seems to become more and more jealous of her companion. “She thought:” I must make one more effort not to hate her.” Yet in her attempt not to hate her, she cannot help but to hate Mrs. Ansley. She learns that Mrs. Ansley not only was in love with Delphin, but that she slept with him and had his child, Barbara. This proves to be the reason why Mrs. Ansley’s mother rushed her off to Florence to get married quickly to Horace only two months after her affair with Delphin.
The ending was not what I had readily expected, but the tone had been set for it from the lead into the story. This explains the uneasy feelings between the two women and the superficial friendship.
As the two women reflect, they both stereotype each other into neat little molds in their heads without ever scratching below the surface. Their friendship exists only on a superficial level. Mrs. Slade as described by Mrs. Ansley was beautiful and vibrant, full of life and excitement in her past; but in her present she is depressed and “full of failures and mistakes.” Mrs. Ansley by Mrs. Slades description is beautiful yet dull, in past and present, “Museum specimens of old New York.” Mrs. Slade spends a lot of time contemplating her past and present relations with Mrs. Ansley. She also spends a lot of time being jealous of Mrs. Ansley’s daughter because she is more exciting then her own daughter. We learn that the two women after getting married around the same time also lived in New York across the street from one another. The two women’s husbands also died around the same time. These superficial similarities seem to be all that their friendship is based upon: “The similarity of their lot had again drawn them together.” They had no real conversation flow between them, as you expect old friends to have. There are no specific memories of anything that the two of them did together in the past or present of the entire text. Another good example of how little they knew of each other: “So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope.” When you look through the wrong end of a telescope you see very little of the big picture.
The author’s focus is on the tone of uneasiness, which finally makes its full-blown entrance as the two women sit in silence on the terrace. Mrs. Slade, the longer she sits, seems to become more and more jealous of her companion. “She thought:” I must make one more effort not to hate her.” Yet in her attempt not to hate her, she cannot help but to hate Mrs. Ansley. She learns that Mrs. Ansley not only was in love with Delphin, but that she slept with him and had his child, Barbara. This proves to be the reason why Mrs. Ansley’s mother rushed her off to Florence to get married quickly to Horace only two months after her affair with Delphin.
The ending was not what I had readily expected, but the tone had been set for it from the lead into the story. This explains the uneasy feelings between the two women and the superficial friendship.
June 10, 2020
Post-reading I find that that these lavish stories compensate for my gross inadequacy of words.
To put it simply, I am more or less speechless.
Bathed in Wharton's snobbish syrup of setting is the golden meat of these full-bodied stories broaching so many different topics.
Roman Fever is cut out to be the star of the show and rightly so, as its captivating portrayal of illegitimacy, envy, and realization is carried vividly throughout the piece. I personally think Roman Fever is remarkable because of Wharton's incredible attention to detail in an intricate ode to cunningness in careful wielding of power. "Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially" (19). As soon as Mrs. Ansley says, "I had Barbara," (20), everything becomes transparent, and the reader is enraptured in sheer awe of the sly fox that Wharton has been. "So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope" (9).
The story is passionate from start to end and it is characterized by an onset of multifarious emotion.
What is the real Roman fever? Ask yourself this if you read it.
All of the featured short stories are gems. One of the most brilliant, I think, is Souls Belated, which I believe captures the essence of what Wharton tries to combat: "the same fenced-in view of life, the same keep-off-the-grass morality, the same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices", all of which appear to cower in the face of something like the "nakedness of each other's souls" (119-20).
It is the routine of something like marriage that is harshly questioned by Wharton; through the character of Lydia, she tears apart the pre-constructed concept with organized, whitened jaws.
In the wispy white smoke of Gannett's cigarette is hidden the danger of closeness, the impatience and the irrationality of love, and the gently uncurling ties that hold two people together.
If you truly want a taste of Wharton and can only read one story from this collection, read The Angel at the Grave. It is captivating, rich, and absolutely glorious.
The spirit of Wharton's attractive, meaningful rhetoric is entrenched in every part of this piece. It boasts an amusing and meritorious magniloquence to its readers, and, well, "what could have been more stimulating than to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this Titanic cosmogony?" (134).
If you must take something from Wharton (and you must!) to keep in your pocket through your endeavors, my favorite piece was this jewel from The Angel at the Grave: "Literature's like a big railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get to a place when they want to they go somewhere else" (138).
Roman Fever and Other Stories is the epitome of the zest of Wharton, with a flavorful moxie that gives it a unique edge in the enormous sphere of literature.
To put it simply, I am more or less speechless.
Bathed in Wharton's snobbish syrup of setting is the golden meat of these full-bodied stories broaching so many different topics.
Roman Fever is cut out to be the star of the show and rightly so, as its captivating portrayal of illegitimacy, envy, and realization is carried vividly throughout the piece. I personally think Roman Fever is remarkable because of Wharton's incredible attention to detail in an intricate ode to cunningness in careful wielding of power. "Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially" (19). As soon as Mrs. Ansley says, "I had Barbara," (20), everything becomes transparent, and the reader is enraptured in sheer awe of the sly fox that Wharton has been. "So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope" (9).
The story is passionate from start to end and it is characterized by an onset of multifarious emotion.
What is the real Roman fever? Ask yourself this if you read it.
All of the featured short stories are gems. One of the most brilliant, I think, is Souls Belated, which I believe captures the essence of what Wharton tries to combat: "the same fenced-in view of life, the same keep-off-the-grass morality, the same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices", all of which appear to cower in the face of something like the "nakedness of each other's souls" (119-20).
It is the routine of something like marriage that is harshly questioned by Wharton; through the character of Lydia, she tears apart the pre-constructed concept with organized, whitened jaws.
In the wispy white smoke of Gannett's cigarette is hidden the danger of closeness, the impatience and the irrationality of love, and the gently uncurling ties that hold two people together.
If you truly want a taste of Wharton and can only read one story from this collection, read The Angel at the Grave. It is captivating, rich, and absolutely glorious.
The spirit of Wharton's attractive, meaningful rhetoric is entrenched in every part of this piece. It boasts an amusing and meritorious magniloquence to its readers, and, well, "what could have been more stimulating than to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this Titanic cosmogony?" (134).
If you must take something from Wharton (and you must!) to keep in your pocket through your endeavors, my favorite piece was this jewel from The Angel at the Grave: "Literature's like a big railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get to a place when they want to they go somewhere else" (138).
Roman Fever and Other Stories is the epitome of the zest of Wharton, with a flavorful moxie that gives it a unique edge in the enormous sphere of literature.
October 18, 2015
Woo hoo! Roman Fever is a saucy, saucy story
I like all the knitting
who knew knitting could be so passionate?
...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/fema...
One would think that performance artist/craftivist Casey Jenkins'
vaginal knitting project
would be the most passionate instance of knitting there is.
But one would be WRONG WRONG WRONG
The goings-on around Casey Jenkins' vulva are as
milquetoast as they come
but Roman Fever?
"Mrs. Ansley's hands lay inert across her needles. She looked straight out at the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor at her feet."
her knitting is more crimson from the get go
than Casey Jenkins' ever was.
January 20, 2020
This collection is bookended by two standouts, the delightful one-up(wo)manship of Roman Fever (so short it's almost flash fiction) and the curious gradations of social stigma and sacrifice in Austres Temps...Without diminishing the pleasure gleaned from the parody and satire of After Holbein and Xingu.
Must every Wharton book of short stories I read garner 5 stars? If they're as good this one, then YES.
Must every Wharton book of short stories I read garner 5 stars? If they're as good this one, then YES.
November 20, 2014
I'm disappointed, these stories don't resonate or stay with me. Did I not notice before that Wharton is a bit mean-spirited and cynical, and certainly about marriage? Her own was strange as I learned at The Mount last summer!
But thankfully after discussing the stories with my book club this week, I have a better handle on them and on Wharton's skill and intentions.
But thankfully after discussing the stories with my book club this week, I have a better handle on them and on Wharton's skill and intentions.
January 12, 2012
Wow! Incredibly good. Wonder why we didn't read this in high school? Collection of surprising, ironic tales, with an insightful look into people's desires and paranoias and how one can become bound by them. VERY VERY good.
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