The critical reception of Edith Wharton
By: Helen Killoran.
Series: Studies in American literature and culture.
Publisher: Camden House
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Rochester, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
Subjects: Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 -- Criticism and interpretation -- History; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Description: "Once considered the "last Victorian," Edith Wharton and her fiction were at first greeted with the gentility proper to a lady of New York's social elite. Gradually, however, critics became gadflies incessantly buzzing at a Sphinx who seemed never to comment on her own work. At times, though, her impulses took control and she made remarks in letters and elsewhere that, on the one hand, appear to illuminate the fiction, but on the other, often raise more problems than they solve.

Ironically, now that she is becoming recognized as a Modernist by some, and as perhaps the greatest American writer of her generation, the criticism often obfuscates more than it reveals. The reasons reside in critics' loyalties to various theoretical approaches, the objectivity of which are often compromised by political hopes. This volume not only traces and analyzes the development of Whartonian literary criticism in its historical and political contexts, but also allows Edith Wharton, herself a literary critic, to respond to various concepts through the author's deductions and extrapolations from Wharton's own words.

Professor Killoran's book provides a fresh reading of the best and most influential criticism on Wharton and in so doing throws new light on Wharton's works themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: "Works by Edith Wharton: p. [143]-146.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [147]-168) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1: Preview-The Feminine, the Lull, the Feminist; title: 2: The Hose of Mirth-From Morality to Taxidermy; title: 3: Ethan Frome-The Murder of a Masterpiece; title: 4: The Custom of the Country-Monstrous Undine; title: 5: Summer-The Law of the Father; title: 6: The Age of Innocence-A Buried Life; title: 7: Ghosts-In Broad Daylight; title: 8: Review-Further Sources; title: Bibliography; title: Index.