Edith Wharton, Hermione Lee, c. 2007. BWHA.

Edith Wharton, Hermione Lee, c. 2007. BWHA. 

See personal notes on Age of Innocence.

Updates

October 2, 2023:Wow, wow, just delivered. "Free delivery" and the books were "free," also. What a great country.

I've had to dispose of much of my library -- I simply ran out of shelves -- but now that I have a few empty shelves, I am re-building my library, as it were. I feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store.

I'm in my Edith Wharton phase, having just finished Hermione Lee's biography. My notes are here.

This is the Norton Critical Edition, c. 2003. Whenever possible, I tend to read the Norton Critical Editions first -- the introductions and the essays that generally make up half of the entire edition are incredible. I guess that's the real reason I buy the Norton books.

It's hard to believe but The Age of Innocence is set in 1875 -- only ten years after the end of the Civil War. Edith was born in 1862, in NYC, during the Civil war. She was brought to Europe by her parents when she was four years old, or thereabouts, and did not return to America until 1872, at the age of ten. She wrote Innocence during the years following the end of WWI where she was instrumental in helping refugees from the war pouring into Paris, particularly those from Belgium. The book was published in 1920 and was written to capture how she remembers Old New York, the working title for the book. This book won her the Pulitzer Prize; Wharton was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize. She was nominated, but never won, the Nobel Prize for literature on three different occasions, first in 1920, if I recall correctly.

I am incredibly excited to see how Edith Wharton remembers "old New York," just a few years after the end of the US Civil War. 

Wharton was a generation (or more) than the great women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, and before the great writers, male and female, of the 20th century, to include Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She met Scott Fitzgerald; I don't recall if she met Virginia Woolf. Edith died in 1937; Woolf committed suicide by drowning in 1941, unable to live through yet another European war. 

My first thought when reading the lengthy introduction to the novel: how I wish I could have talked with Linda Fisher -- the first love of my live -- about her years growing up in Westfield, NJ, a bedroom suburb of NYC. She was born in 1949 and left the East Coast after getting her medical degree, though she did return to Virginia for a time. It would have been so interesting to hear from her what NYC was like when she was in public school -- elementary through high school. Did they visit often; was the culture of NYC a world and a time different than New Jersey? Was her upbringing in Westfield more like mine in North Dakota or was it really a NYC experience? My hunch: three different worlds: NYC; Westfield; and Williston.

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The Gilded Age

From Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton, page 47;

Wharton's versions of the dramatic economic developments of the "Gilded Age" was a personal and local one.

She came at it through lives of individuals, especially women, in the social group she knew.

She was not an American realist like Upton Sinclair or Frank Norris. She did not "do," head-on and large-scale, the building of the great monopolies in oil, steel and meat-packing, the mighty expansion of the railroads, the settlement of the West, the great surge in technological inventions, (the telephone, the car, the electric light), the expansion  of the communications industry, the massive increases in post-war industrial productivity between 1870 and 1910, the more than doubling of the population, the gathering waves of immigration, the phenomenal rise in incomes at the top (and the savage decline at the bottom), the titanic power of the bankers and financiers, the huge building programmes in the cities.

Wow, if this doesn't read like it could have been written about the US, 2010 - 2020. Just saying.

Substitutions:

She was not an American realist like Upton Sinclair or Frank Norris. She did not "do," head-on and large-scale, the building of the great monopolies in e-commerce, sports and blades, the mighty expansion of the government, the great migration to the south, the great surge in technological inventions, (AI, the EV, the smart phone), the expansion  of the communications industry, the massive increases in post-Reagan industrial productivity between 2010 and 2020, the more than doubling of the non-white population, the gathering waves of immigration, the phenomenal rise in incomes at the top (and the savage decline at the bottom), the titanic power of the Fed, the huge building programmes in the cities.

Until very recently I never "understood" the antagonism or the anger the young journalists, the disenfranchised, the novelists, the artists had for the bourgeoisie, although I think that Marxists have a slightly different view / interpretation / definition of bourgeoisie than most non-Marxists.

But recently, due to road construction, I have had to take a different route to Bob Jones Park, Southlake, TX, where Sophia has her soccer practice, I now understand the anger those aforementioned folks have with regard to the bourgeoisie. I now understand it. Seventy-plus years of age and I finally get it. It helped to have re-read Edith Wharton.

September 30, 2023: if I have one criticism of Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton, it is this: 

Hermione Lee seems to "identify" Edith Wharton as an American writer. Edith Wharton happened to have been born in the US, but Wharton was a European writer, more French than even Proust.

I noticed that early on in her biography in which she "compared" Wharton with a dozen American writers. In that early note, Hermione Lee does not mention:

• Henry James: b. 1843 - d. 1916; 19 years older than EW; her literary twin (see below);
  
• Virginia Woolf: b. 1882 - d. 1941; EW older by 20 years;
  
• Marcel Proust: b. 1871 - d. 1922; EW older by 9 years;
  
• Gertrude Stein: b. 1874 - d. 1946; EW older by 12 years;
  
• Edith Wharton: b. 1862 - d. 1937; she hit her stride in her mid-30s -- 1890 and never looked back.
  

Original Post 

From an entry dated July 5, 2009:

I have run into a dilemma. I am using my blog to record my reading program milestones, my reviews, etc. Because I don’t like doing things twice, that means what I put on my blog is not being put here even when it has to do with my reading program. I’m not sure what to do. For now, if there seems to be gaps here, check my blog: http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com. (It will link my literature site.)

I am in my Edith Wharton phase: I have skimmed the Hermione Lee biography of Wharton; I have read Edith’s autobiography, A Backward Glance, and I have just completed what she considered her best novel: Ethan Frome. [September 16, 2023: re-reading some of Hermione Lee's biography of Wharton -- I don't remember ever reading any of this book. How sad.]

I had always wanted to read Edith Wharton but a recent discovery of a critical analysis of Willa Cather and Edith Wharton in Susan Gilbert and Sandra Gubar’s No Man’s Land spurred me into starting. I first read Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and then moved on to Wharton. It was a slog to get through My Ántonia (the subject did not interest me, the writing was unsophisticated, and it had no action/no plot) but by the time I finished I was a wreck; very tearful, just a great story.  Willa Cather really makes one believe that Ántonia/Tony is a real person. It was awesome. After that I read Ethan Frome, which did not have the same emotional impact.  

So, anyway, back to Edith Jones Wharton.

An American citizen in Europe, but mostly France.

Chapter 1: An American in Paris

1848, French Revolution, parents George Frederic Jones and mother Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones in Paris, on their Grand Tour of Europe, with first child, one-year-old Frederic, b. 1847.

Edith, the sister was born during the US Civil War, 1862, at which time her brother Frederic would have been 15 years of age, all New Yorkers. A second brother would have been born sometime between 1847 and 1862. Henry Edward, the second child, was probably born in 1848 or thereabouts. Hermione Lee says Edith's two brothers were much older than Edith, so 15 and 13 years older would make sense.

From wiki: 

Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862, to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander at their brownstone at 14 West Twenty-third Street in New York City.

To her friends and family she was known as "Pussy Jones."

She had two older brothers, Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward.

Frederic married Mary Cadwalader Rawle; their daughter was landscape architect Beatrix Farrand.

Edith was baptized April 20, 1862, Easter Sunday, at Grace Church.

Wharton's paternal family, the Joneses, were a very wealthy and socially prominent family having made their money in real estate.

The saying "keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father's family.

She was related to the Rensselaers, the most prestigious of the old patroon families, who had received land grants from the former Dutch government of New York and New Jersey.

Her father's first cousin was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor.

Fort Stevens in New York was named for Wharton's maternal great-grandfather, Ebenezer Stevens, a Revolutionary War hero and General. 

Patroon, from wiki:

In the United States, a patroon (from Dutch patroon) was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America.

Through the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629, the Dutch West India Company first started to grant this title and land to some of its invested members. These inducements to foster colonization and settlement (also known as the "Rights and Exemptions") are the basis for the patroon system. By the end of the eighteenth century, virtually all of the American states had abolished primogeniture and entail; thus patroons and manors evolved into simply large estates subject to division and leases.

The deeded tracts were called patroonships and could span 16 miles in length on one side of a major river, or 8 miles if spanning both sides. In 1640, the charter was revised to cut new plot sizes in half, and to allow any Dutch American in good standing to purchase an estate. The title of patroon came with powerful rights and privileges. A patroon could create civil and criminal courts, appoint local officials and hold land in perpetuity. In return, he was required by the Dutch West India Company to – sources vary – establish a settlement of at least 50 families within four years on the land, or "ship fifty colonists to it within four year." As tenants working for the patroon, these first settlers were relieved of the duty of public taxes for ten years, but were required to pay rent to the patroon. A patroonship sometimes had its own village and other infrastructure, including churches.

Patroons were entitled to the acquisition of enslaved labor by the Dutch West India Company's Rights and Exemptions Charter. Patroons, often the wealthiest and most influential residents of New Netherland, procured and exploited slaves in almost every part of the colony, although a majority of the slave population remained near New Amsterdam, and farther north, were centered around Fort Orange (Albany, NY) and Rensselaerswijck. Moreover, patroons were essentially the only colonists in New Netherland to own slaves. [So, the north also had a slave history.]

After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664 and American independence in 1783, the system continued with the granting of large tracts known as manors, and sometimes referred to as patroonships.

Chapter 2: Making Up

"Making up" refers to her joy of "making up" stories as a very young child.

This chapter foreshadows her passionate secret love affair in Paris, in 1908 (age 46).

Wrote copiously but much has been lost -- deliberately stolen, destroyed, or simply lost.

Most important person in her life: Walter Berry.

Henry James. He burnt all letters received from Edith. Plenty from him to her.

No letters from her lover, Morton Fullerton, though hers to him came to light many years after her death.

Her characters often live double lives.

Many of these cover-ups have to do with children.

Her childhood.

Her parents' Puritan convictions; practiced an elaborate policy of "social ostracism."

Hermione Lee takes a lot of stuff from Edith's A Backward Glance.

Not Astors or Vanderbilts, but still a pretty well-upholstered air.

Dinner parties -- Jones Madeira -- p. 29.

Wharton's stories of families and societies are always about resistance, p. 33.

The grandest of Wharton's distant relatives was Caroline Schermerhorn, a first cousin of her father's, who became Mrs William B. Astor -- the Mrs. Astor, the queen of New York society, maintaning its moral standards and respeectability against the influx of neew money, supported by her social disciple and masteer of ceremonies Ward McAllister, who coined the term "the Four Hundred" to describe the number of people who culd fit into her ballroom, p. 33 - 34.

Fascinated with incest in her books, p. 34.

By contrast, how much she blames on her mother. Wharton's version of Lucretia Jones is one of the most lethal acts of revenge ever taken by a writing daughter.

Chapter 3 -- Pussy Jones

Early social life. May come back to this chapter later.

Chapter 4 -- Italian Backgrounds

Starts off with a bang.

Early life. Married. Writing. Meets Henry James.

Chapter 5 -- The Decoration of Houses

Depression.

Chapter 6 -- The Republic of Letters

The House of Mirth, age 43, becomes a best-selling author and household name.

Chapter 7 -- Obligations

Chapter 8 -- The Legend

A bit about Edith and Henry James.

Chapter 9 --  Friends in England

Edith, Henry James, Walter Berry.

Marriage unraveling.

Considering making London her home, but then Paris. 

So, it was Italy, London, and then Paris.

PART II

Chapter 10 --  Mme Warthon

Her French adventure began in Paris in 1906, although she had known Paris from early family travels.

Dreyfus case.

In 1885, when she was twenty-three, she married Edward ("Teddy") Robbins Wharton. He was attractive and kindly, a man of leisure from a similar social background and a good sportsman. However, he had none of her artistic or intellectual interests and their marriage was very unhappy.

Connection with the Vanderbilts.

Chapter 11 -- L'Âme Close

1907 in Paris, married to Teddy.

Morton Fullerton enters the picture. 

Chapter 12 --  La Demanderesse (the applicant)

Teddy: sort of non-existent in Edith's life.

The divorce.

Chapter 13 -- Getting What You Want

Edith is now 51 years old. Unmarried.

Alienated from her entire family, both sides, except Minnie and Trix. 

The "trying year" of 1913.

A platonic relationship with Bernard Berenson.

Berenson: prodigious career at Harvard in the 1880s; passion for Arnol, George Eliot, Ruskin, and Pater.

Chapter 14: Fighting France

First trip in two years, last trip until 1923, to America. To NYC to attend Trix's marriage to her Yale professor of constitutional history.

Wharton's trip to Africa -- page 446.

First-time to Africa.

Tunisian travels. 

Now, the book turns to her writing in France, starting in 1914, during the war.

Chapter 15: Une Seconde Patrie

André Gide. Wartime.

A very long chapter.

Part III

Chapter 16: Pavillon / Château

57 years old; acquired two new homes.

Chapter 17: The Age Of Innocence 

Her novel, The Age Of Innocence.

Writes of the pre-war world (1871 - 1873) with a coda at the turn of the century and writing 1919 - 1920.

Escapism, but more. After WWI she needed to "relax."

Chapter 18: Jazz

In her early 60s now comparing herself to the younger writers. First mentioned: Scott Fitzgerald.

Used the term "jazz" as a term of abuse.

Chapter 19: A Private Library

Chapter 20: All Souls'

Very unwell.

Dies: August 11, 1937.

Her after-life begins page 755.

Family tree: page 763 -- at end of last chapter.

Notes: 63 pages.

Bibliography: 7 pages

Index: 29 pages. 

There was no separate epilogue but the last eight pages serve as the epilogue. 

It would be interesting if Hermione Lee (who lives in Oxford and Yorkshire could have written a 500-word essay about Edith. 

I will try to do that. 

Born into a family of unbelievable wealth during the Gilded Age, her father making his fortune in real estate. She was pretty much raised as an only child with two brothers much older than she. She was "always" a writer, and loved to "make up" stories even before she started school.Through family travels to Europe she fell in love with Europe (to include England). She seemed to feel more comfortable in Paris than in NYC. She and Henry James became literary twins joined at the hip, never separated in the literary world.