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Introduction

A Critical History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Millicent Bell
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Summary

Edith Wharton, who was never obscure or forgotten, has been rediscovered a number of times. In 1938, the year after she died, Edmund Wilson published a famous essay, “Justice to Edith Wharton,” because he felt that the notices at her death had underestimated her achievement. Between The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920) she had attained, he thought, an intensity - the consequence of secret personal anguish - which made her “important during a period . . . when there were few American writers worth reading.” He deplored the lowering of her reputation by the effect of her later, inferior works, written when some of this anguish had passed. Unquestionably, Wharton's powers had waxed and waned, as Wilson said. But the life curve of her reputation, whether measured by critical blame or esteem or by popular success or failure had not been governed by the issue of literary achievement alone; it was her subject matter and presumed personal attitudes that chiefly provoked response.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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  • Introduction
  • Edited by Millicent Bell, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521453585.001
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  • Introduction
  • Edited by Millicent Bell, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521453585.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Millicent Bell, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521453585.001
Available formats
×