Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T03:57:33.022Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

1 - Travel Broadens the Mind

Janet Beer
Janet Beer
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access

Summary

Edith Wharton, née Jones, was first taken to Europe at the age of 4. Her parents were endeavouring to escape the deleterious effects a slump in property values was having upon their income and it was felt that the family could live more comfortably in Europe. So, in November 1866, the family set sail for England, later moving on to France, but also spending substantial portions of time in Italy, Spain, and Germany. Six formative years in Europe were sufficient to induce what the adult Edith Wharton would describe as her lack of affection for either the rural or the urban American landscape. On her return to Lenox, Massachusetts, site of the Mount, the American home to which she was most committed, she described her feelings in a letter to a friend, Sara (Sally) Norton of 5 June 1903:

My first few weeks in America are always miserable, because the tastes I am cursed with are all of a kind that cannot be gratified here, & I am not enough in sympathy with our ‘gros public’ to make up for the lack on the aesthetic side. One's friends are delightful; but we are none of us Americans, we don't think or feel as the Americans do, we are the wretched exotics produced in a European glass-house, the most déplacé & useless class on earth! All of which outburst is due to my first sight of American streets, my first hearing of American voices, & the wild, dishevelled backwoods look of everything when one first comes home! You see in my heart of hearts, a heart never unbosomed, I feel in America as you say you do in England – out of sympathy with everything. And in England I like it all – institutions, traditions, mannerisms, conservatisms, everything but the women's clothes, & the having to go to church every Sunday. (L. 84)

The course of Edith Wharton's life and work can, in many ways, be understood with reference to the two passions that fuelled this outburst to Sara Norton.

Type
Chapter
Information
Edith Wharton
, pp. 6 - 20
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

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.

Available formats
×