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Works of Edith Wharton
Works of Edith Wharton with active table of contents to navigate easily. Works
Afterward
The Age of Innocence
Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses
Autres Temps...
Bunner Sisters
The Choice
Coming Home
Crucial Instances
The Custom of the Country
The Descent of Man & Other Stories
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Volume 1
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Volume 2
Ethan Frome
Fighting France
The Fruit of the Tree
The Glimpses of the Moon
The Greater Inclination
The Hermit and the Wild Woman
The House of Mirth
In Morocco
Kerfol
The Long Run
Madame de Treymes
The Reef
Sanctuary
Summer
Tales of Men and Ghosts
The Touchstone
The Triumph of Night
The Valley of Decision
Xingu
Afterward
The Age of Innocence
Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses
Autres Temps...
Bunner Sisters
The Choice
Coming Home
Crucial Instances
The Custom of the Country
The Descent of Man & Other Stories
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Volume 1
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Volume 2
Ethan Frome
Fighting France
The Fruit of the Tree
The Glimpses of the Moon
The Greater Inclination
The Hermit and the Wild Woman
The House of Mirth
In Morocco
Kerfol
The Long Run
Madame de Treymes
The Reef
Sanctuary
Summer
Tales of Men and Ghosts
The Touchstone
The Triumph of Night
The Valley of Decision
Xingu
3819 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,723 books5,564 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
Want to Read
August 26, 2022I have NOT read this book, but am using this as a place for general observations about Wharton’s New York Stories, which I reviewed individually HERE.
Write Your Own Wharton Short Story
Wharton has a store-cupboard of favoured ingredients that she expertly blends in varying combinations and quantities to concoct her exquisite tales. Each of the twenty New York Stories has a unique combination of familiar ingredients, plucked from different shelves, but there is magic in her method. The result is more than the sum of the parts.
The recipe is hard to reverse-engineer, so although I'm tempted to try to write one of my own, I doubt the results will be worth sharing. I expect some GR friends could rise to the challenge, though. Note: This is intended as a bit of fun, not to trivialise Wharton’s undoubted skill.
The key ingredients are:
Characters
* Strong women
* Divorcées
* Artists and authors (mostly men)
* Returning exiles
Objects
* Paintings
* Books
* Letters: unexpected, expected but not arriving, anonymous, or misattributed
* Money: needing, gaining, keeping, losing
Situations
* Rivalry: for success in art/writing or over a partner
* Courting, marriage, divorce, and remarriage amid changing mores
* Double duplicity: men and women marrying on false assumptions
* Mistaken authorship (deliberate and not)
* Emotional pain, even amid luxury
* Caring for an invalid
* Contemplating a view
Ethics and Dilemmas
* Honesty and integrity of artistic purpose versus the need to survive
* Honesty and integrity versus kindly white lies and good manners
* Society expectations versus self (thanks for that one, Gabriela)
* Fidelity in relationships
* Forgiveness, turning a blind eye, and possible redemption
* Ill-gotten gains, used for good
Narrative Arc
* Twists and reversals
* A surprising, ambiguous, or open ending
Style and Symbols
* Acerbic and insightful wit, exposing societal hypocrisy
* Contrary and contradictory opinions (very Wildean)
* Interior decor to indicate interior mind and exterior social position
Although Wharton wrote also ghost stories, there is only one in her New York Stories collection.
Of the twenty stories, which I reviewed HERE, I gave eight 5*, seven 4*, and five 3*. If I’d spread them out over a longer time, some of the ratings may have been a little higher, as they did become a little too familiar.
Biographical Notes on Wharton
Edith Wharton was born in 1862, died in 1937, and although always a New Yorker, was a regular traveller to and sometime inhabitant of Europe (mainly England, France, and Italy), starting with a spell from ages four to ten.
She was not always as wealthy as those around her, and apparently had little maternal instinct. At 23, she married an older man who developed depression and other health problems, lasting many years. Just before WW1, after nearly 30 years of marriage (no children), she divorced him. She lived in Paris throughout the war.
All these experiences feature in at least one of her New York Stories.
Wharton was prolific, though her first novel was not published until she was 40. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature (for The Age of Innocence in 1921), and was three times nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature (1927, 1928, and 1930).
Wharton and/or Wilde?
The style and setting meant I frequently wondered if Wharton was, in some ways, the American Wilde, or he was the Irish Wharton - which is not meant to diminish the talent of either. He was only eight years older, but whereas he died in Victorian times (just), she lived almost until the start of WW2.
I don’t know if Wharton ever met or corresponded with Wilde, but she must have known of his works, and maybe he of hers. She travelled in Europe and he in the US, and they may have met in 1882, but there doesn’t seem to be any actual evidence, as discussed here.
Quirky Negatives
I noticed several unfamiliar negative forms of common words, including: innutritious, inoccupation, unanxious, unsuccess (a noun; the adjective unsuccessful is commonplace), and inconsecutive.
Write Your Own Wharton Short Story
Wharton has a store-cupboard of favoured ingredients that she expertly blends in varying combinations and quantities to concoct her exquisite tales. Each of the twenty New York Stories has a unique combination of familiar ingredients, plucked from different shelves, but there is magic in her method. The result is more than the sum of the parts.
The recipe is hard to reverse-engineer, so although I'm tempted to try to write one of my own, I doubt the results will be worth sharing. I expect some GR friends could rise to the challenge, though. Note: This is intended as a bit of fun, not to trivialise Wharton’s undoubted skill.
The key ingredients are:
Characters
* Strong women
* Divorcées
* Artists and authors (mostly men)
* Returning exiles
Objects
* Paintings
* Books
* Letters: unexpected, expected but not arriving, anonymous, or misattributed
* Money: needing, gaining, keeping, losing
Situations
* Rivalry: for success in art/writing or over a partner
* Courting, marriage, divorce, and remarriage amid changing mores
* Double duplicity: men and women marrying on false assumptions
* Mistaken authorship (deliberate and not)
* Emotional pain, even amid luxury
* Caring for an invalid
* Contemplating a view
Ethics and Dilemmas
* Honesty and integrity of artistic purpose versus the need to survive
* Honesty and integrity versus kindly white lies and good manners
* Society expectations versus self (thanks for that one, Gabriela)
* Fidelity in relationships
* Forgiveness, turning a blind eye, and possible redemption
* Ill-gotten gains, used for good
Narrative Arc
* Twists and reversals
* A surprising, ambiguous, or open ending
Style and Symbols
* Acerbic and insightful wit, exposing societal hypocrisy
* Contrary and contradictory opinions (very Wildean)
* Interior decor to indicate interior mind and exterior social position
Although Wharton wrote also ghost stories, there is only one in her New York Stories collection.
Of the twenty stories, which I reviewed HERE, I gave eight 5*, seven 4*, and five 3*. If I’d spread them out over a longer time, some of the ratings may have been a little higher, as they did become a little too familiar.
Biographical Notes on Wharton
Edith Wharton was born in 1862, died in 1937, and although always a New Yorker, was a regular traveller to and sometime inhabitant of Europe (mainly England, France, and Italy), starting with a spell from ages four to ten.
She was not always as wealthy as those around her, and apparently had little maternal instinct. At 23, she married an older man who developed depression and other health problems, lasting many years. Just before WW1, after nearly 30 years of marriage (no children), she divorced him. She lived in Paris throughout the war.
All these experiences feature in at least one of her New York Stories.
Wharton was prolific, though her first novel was not published until she was 40. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature (for The Age of Innocence in 1921), and was three times nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature (1927, 1928, and 1930).
Wharton and/or Wilde?
The style and setting meant I frequently wondered if Wharton was, in some ways, the American Wilde, or he was the Irish Wharton - which is not meant to diminish the talent of either. He was only eight years older, but whereas he died in Victorian times (just), she lived almost until the start of WW2.
I don’t know if Wharton ever met or corresponded with Wilde, but she must have known of his works, and maybe he of hers. She travelled in Europe and he in the US, and they may have met in 1882, but there doesn’t seem to be any actual evidence, as discussed here.
Quirky Negatives
I noticed several unfamiliar negative forms of common words, including: innutritious, inoccupation, unanxious, unsuccess (a noun; the adjective unsuccessful is commonplace), and inconsecutive.
October 15, 2016
I love this woman's voice. The House of Mirth will always be my favorite--with irony to spare from title to final word--she paints the gilded age with poverty and blood and lovely clothes and houses.
I don't know an author who better shows the plight of the women of her age.
I don't know an author who better shows the plight of the women of her age.
March 30, 2021
Very engaging story telling
March 17, 2018
This is a very long book with many sections. I am on the fifth story "The Bunner Sisters"
So far I have enjoyed the book. The second book was "The Age Of Innocents" that we read with
the Savant Book Club. This one may take me a long time as I will read other books before this one
is finished.
So far I have enjoyed the book. The second book was "The Age Of Innocents" that we read with
the Savant Book Club. This one may take me a long time as I will read other books before this one
is finished.
December 21, 2013
Wharton writes excellent short stories and, though not many, some of the best ghost stories. This is a collection of her entire corpus and I just got too bogged down in "Age of Innocence", and so it is digitally backshelved at the moment.
February 15, 2015
It was fun revisiting some of my favorite Wharton novels and stories but this collection is very bare bones when it comes to editing and endnotes.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews