Edith Wharton's Travel Writing: The Making of a Connoisseur [Hardcover]

Sarah Bird Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1997

The first book-length critical analysis of its kind, this work is an engaging study of Wharton's travel writing as the embodiment of her connoisseurship.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Long regarded as one of the giants of twentieth-century fiction, Edith Wharton, in these days of increased readership of travel writing, is also being appreciated for her wonderful travelogues. A bit academic but not prohibitively so for Wharton fans or avid readers of travel literature, Wright's systematic analysis estimates Wharton's work in that field as "the embodiment of her connoisseurship." In examining all of Wharton's travel texts, the author isolates the factors that went into her eminent success: inveterate travel, of course, but also, and not necessarily secondary, her refined taste, which stemmed from her own personal aesthetic code of what was excellent and what was not. Also influential in not only the production but also the value of Wharton's travel writing was her expatriation--her long and mostly uninterrupted residence in France. Also discussed is the relationship of Wharton's travel writing to that of other American women travel writers and the question of why she gave up the genre to devote herself exclusively to fiction writing. Brad Hooper

About the Author

Sarah Bird Wright is an independent scholar.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1 edition (May 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312158424
• ISBN-13: 978-0312158422
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,688,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)