Bunner Sisters [Paperback]

Edith Wharton (Author), 1stWorld (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2005

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of the drooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at the Academy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson River School on the walls of the National Academy of Design, an inconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately and favourably known to the feminine population of the quarter bordering on Stuyvesant Square. It was a very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a side-street already doomed to decline; and from the miscellaneous display behind the window-pane, and the brevity of the sign surmounting it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a black ground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guess the precise nature of the business carried on within. But that was of little consequence, since its fame was so purely local that the customers on whom its existence depended were almost congenitally aware of the exact range of "goods" to be found at Bunner Sisters'.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (May 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421804298
• ISBN-13: 978-1421804293
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,339,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your typical serialized magazine romance, July 7, 2009

By 

Cynthia Baker "pseudo intellectual" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bunner Sisters (Paperback)

Edith Wharton, one of my favorite writers, always amazes me with the deftness of her narrative gifts (suspense, characterization, storyline, plot, point-of-view) in achieving a subtle, powerful message.

I've always suspected that Wharton's choice of subject matter was driven by her repulsion to the overly sentimental fiction produced for the female magazine readers of her day -- serialized romances illustrating blunt moral cliches with improbably happy endings, all completely remote from the realities of life.

In this story, 2 mediocre seamstresses who literally crank out a living selling pinked flounces, buttons, sewing notions, and millinery trims find their mundane but stable routines disturbed by charming, mysterious clockmaker Herman Ramy, who awakens their romantic yearnings. In the typical romance of Wharton's day, the elder sister Ann Eliza would sacrifice her dreams for the bliss of the younger Evelina, and everyone would live happily ever after.

But Wharton skewers the cliche and delivers a razor-sharp observation of the realities of the urban working-class, complete with a scathing indictment on how society treats women over 30 years of age. This story's power lies in showing how destructive sentimental notions of womanhood are to individuals who don't realize their own strengths.

(I read the free online version of this story via the Gutenberg Project.)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected and emotional, April 26, 2007

By 

Cheryl (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bunner Sisters (Paperback)

Good short novel about two spinster sisters who run a sewing shop together. The plot emphasizes how a seemingly insignificant act. like buying a birthday present, can have enormous consequences in the future.
It first startsout as a pleasant account of simple lives. However, the path the story takes becomes unexpected and emotional. Worth reading.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wharton writes like no other I have read!, June 28, 2009

By 

Rizzo (Nowhere) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Bunner Sisters (Paperback)

It was the play version of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome that pushed me to read more of her wonderful books. What has intrigued me is her writing style. She will go for pages without much happening, but you learn an awful lot in those few pages.

Edith Wharton's Bunner Sisters takes place in New York, 1916 where hard times have fallen upon two sisters who run a shabby little dressmaker's shop adjacent to their dwelling. The elder sister, Ann Eliza, and her younger sister Evelina have encountered a sickly, but educated clockmaker who sells her a clock. At first, knowledge of his personality and previous lifestyle are unknown to the sisters, but they slowly befriend the lonely man and his visits to the home are frequent thoughout the next few months. He becomes a part of their lives and his existence is with some mystery. His interest to one of the sisters moves the story in another direction and into another phase of their lives.

The writing style of Wharton is unlike others, as she uses words that not only describe a scene in an era or condition, but with descriptive phrases that depict feelings, moods, attitudes, and mystery. She has given the reader just enough information about the man to carry the story forward without revealing too much, to know something is coming up. The air of mysterious is always around as we learn about the old man, his relationship with the sisters and the confidence they have in him. You will learn the symbolic references to time, age and transition, as the clock tic tocks and winds.

This is a wonderful read on the socio-economic hard times during the era, the smaller run dressmaking industry, and mostly, the relationships between three people and the care between two sisters. Bunner Sisters is a novelette. Like any other Wharton short novel, this one is filled with mysterious interest! .....Rizzo