Book Review: The Stories of Edith Wharton, Selected and Introduced by Anita Brookner (1988)

The Stories of Edith Wharton, which features the same painting as my edition of Summer, by Edith Wharton. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Edith Wharton, circa 1889.

Edith Wharton is best-known for writing classic novels like The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and The Age of Innocence. However, Wharton also published some 85 short stories throughout her career. The Stories of Edith Wharton, a 1988 collection, gathers together 14 of Wharton’s short stories. The stories are presented in chronological order and span her entire career, from her first short story collection, published in 1899, to the last, published in 1937, the year she died. 

The stories in this collection were selected by Anita Brookner, a British art historian who became an acclaimed novelist herself—her 1984 novel Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize. I didn’t read Brookner’s introduction to the book until I had finished all of the stories, since modern introductions have the terrible habit of often spoiling the plot. (I’m looking at you, Matthew J. Bruccoli’s introduction to The Great Gatsby!) Fortunately, Brookner does not spoil any key plot details in her brief introduction to the book. All 14 of the stories included in this volume show Wharton’s masterful skills at work. 

Wharton was very familiar with the subjects she wrote about. She was born Edith Jones into a wealthy New York City family, who may have inspired the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Edith was married to Edward “Teddy” Wharton when she was 23 years old. Their marriage was not a very happy one, and eventually Edith divorced Teddy in 1913. 

You might hear the name Edith Wharton and be distracted by visions of Gilded Age New York City and cushy rich people. You might think her writing is all stuffy mansions, tight corsets, and repressed feelings. But that stereotype does Wharton’s writing a disservice. These stories are still relevant, as they show us human behavior, both good and bad, that is universal. There are divorces—even two in the humorous story “The Other Two”—and there are affairs—of the heart, if not the entire body. Wharton’s writing style still feels modern today, as it is clear and direct, but mixed with a keen eye towards social status and more than a dollop of humor and wit. Here’s the first paragraph from “The Pelican,” the first short story in the collection, from 1898:

“She was very pretty when I first knew her, with the sweet straight nose and short upper-lip of the cameo-brooch divinity, humanized by a dimple that flowered in her cheek whenever anything was said possessing the outward attributes of humor without its intrinsic quality. For the dear lady was providentially deficient in humor: the least hint of the real thing clouded her lovely eye like the hovering shadow of an algebraic problem.” (p.1) 

That’s superb writing, and it paints a vivid picture of the character. Wharton’s keen empathy allowed her to enter other people’s points of view—“The Pelican” and some of the other stories collected here are told in the first person by male narrators. 

Wharton’s sharp wit is on excellent display in the story “The Mission of Jane,” where these two quotes come from:

“Most of his wife’s opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and saw no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable.” (p.33)

“It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.” (p.34)

“Charm Incorporated” is the funniest story in the book, a light trifle about a man who must constantly take care of his eccentric, but charming, in-laws. The story features this funny and insightful quote:

“Besides, Targett’s imagination was not particularly active, and as he was always sure of a good meal himself, it never much disturbed him to be told that others were not.” (p.272)

Another humorous quote that I quite enjoyed is from the story “The Last Asset”:

“…there was about him a boundless desultoriness which renewed Garnett’s conviction that there is no one on Earth as idle as an American who is not busy.” (p.66)

Wharton is always excellent on the subjects of love and desire, and the following were some of my favorite quotes from these stories:

“…it is not the kiss endured, but the kiss returned, that lives.” (p.92) 

“It was horrible to know too much; there was always blood in the foundations.” (p.117)

“She was sure he felt sorry for her, sorrier perhaps than anyone had ever felt; but he had always paid her the supreme tribute of not showing it.” (p.122)

“Our thoughts met as naturally as our eyes: it was almost as if we loved each other because we liked each other. The quality of a love may be tested by the amount of friendship it contains.” (p.153)

“He supposed afterward that what had happened to him was what people called falling in love.” (p.272)

Wharton wrote a fair number of stories that deal with the supernatural, and two are included in this volume. “Pomegranate Seed” tells the tale of a woman whose husband receives sporadic letters from a mysterious party. “All Souls’” the last story in the book, is quite creepy, and features this great quote at the beginning:

“I read the other day in a book by a fashionable essayist that ghosts went out when electric light came in. What nonsense!” (p.291) 

If you enjoy short fiction, chances are you’ll find something that moves you in The Stories of Edith Wharton.