Edith Wharton in Context

Description

Edith Wharton was one of America's most popular and prolific writers, becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921. In a publishing career spanning seven decades, Wharton lived and wrote through a period of tremendous social, cultural and historical change. Bringing together a team of international scholars, this volume provides the first substantial text dedicated to the various contexts that frame Wharton's remarkable career. Each essay offers a clearly argued and lucid assessment of Wharton's work as it relates to seven key areas: life and works, critical receptions, book and publishing history, arts and aesthetics, social designs, time and place, and literary milieux. These sections provide a broad and accessible resource for students coming to Wharton for the first time while offering scholars new critical insights.

Laura Rattray is Senior Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Hull. She is editor of the two-volume The Unpublished Writings of Edith Wharton (2009) and Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country: A Reassessment (2010). Her recent publications include journal articles on Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood, Josephine Johnson and the Hollywood novels of Horace McCoy. She has recently been awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship for her work on Wharton.