Drawing on many previously unavailable sources, the author of Women of the Left Bank offers a feminist perspective on the life and work of Edith Wharton, from questions about her paternity to her marriage, affairs, and personal relationships.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Benstock ( Women of the Left Bank: Paris 1900-1940 ) here presents a comprehensive portrait of the gifted writer; born into a prominent New York family, Edith Jones (1862-1937) married Edward Wharton in 1885 and embarked on life as a society matron. The author asks provocatively, "How did the frightened debutante become the social chronicler of her age?" Benstock's engrossing response draws extensively on unpublished materials to detail Wharton's dramatic metamorphosis into the successful author whose fiction ( House of Mirth , 1905) exposed the hypocrisies of her class. Wharton traveled abroad and lived for many years in France, where her love affair with Morton Fullerton provided a passionate escape from her difficult marriage. Her husband's unpredictable behavior--he was manic-depressive--precipitated a divorce in 1913. Wharton's close circle of intellectual friends, including writer Henry James, encouraged and sustained her. Despite bouts of debilitating respiratory illness, she wrote prolifically and won the Pulitzer Prize for Age of Innocence (1920). Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Relying on newly available materials from the Wharton archives, Benstock (Women of the Left Bank, LJ 11/15/86) has drawn a compelling portrait of Henry James's "angel of devastation." In rich and sometimes tedious detail, the author traces the development of Wharton's private life and its impact on her public persona. This study provides greater insight than previous biographies into Wharton's failed marriage, her affair with Morton Fullerton, her guilt over her childlessness, and her intimate relationship with Henry James. The Wharton who emerges is a highly energetic writer for whom sexuality, passion, and the roles of women in society are central to life and art. Filled with engaging social history and literary criticism, Benstock's work challenges and complements R.W.B. Lewis's Edith Wharton (1975). This is first-rate literary biography. Highly recommended.
--Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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