Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s Favorite Novels (and The House of Mirth isn’t among them)

/ Donna Campbell / 2 Comments

From an interview, supposedly Edith Wharton’s first.

Carroll, Loren. “Edith Wharton in Profile. In first interview of Long Career, America’s Famed Novelist Talks of Growing Interest in Theatre.” New York Herald. Paris Edition. Nov. 16, 1936, page 6, column 6. [Date corrected 7/4/23. Thanks to Robin Peel and to Stewart Gillies at the British Library for the correct citation.]

. . .

But many “radical” novelists, she thinks, are only deceiving themselves. “Their preoccupation with new methods and details of technique is simply a sign of fatigue. The English language is not dead; it is inevitably enlarging itself. Dropping out capital letters and punctuation is only a symptom of poverty of imagination. The main thing is still creation of character, just as it was for Tolstoy, Stendahl, Trollope, Thackeray, George Eiot, Flaubert, and Henry James.”

These names were not produced at random. From their work Mrs. Wharton makes her choice of great novels: “War and Peace,” “La Chartreuse de Parme,” “The Portrait of a Lady,” “Middlemarch,” Trollope’s political novels and “several of Thackeray’s.” Of “The Portrait of a Lady, she says, “It is a perfect thing of its kind.” And of George Eliot, “If she hadn’t gone to live with George Henry Lewes, and felt obliged in consequence to defend conventional morality, she might have been one of the greatest of English novelists.”

Disclaiming any intention of estimating her own work, Mrs. Wharton is willing, nevertheless, to choose her own favorites. They are “The Custom of the Country,” “Summer,” “The Children,” “Hudson River Bracketed” and “The Gods Arrive.”

. . . .

Edith Wharton Collection at the Beinecke Library to close temporarily beginning in April 2014

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From Gary Totten: 

Various Archival Collections to Close Temporarily Beginning in April 2014

Beginning in April 2014, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library will temporarily close various archival collections in preparation for a major building renovation scheduled to start in May 2015. In general, collections that are temporarily closed will be unavailable for six to eight weeks.

Researchers planning to visit the Beinecke should consult the library’s closed collections schedule beforehand to confirm the availability of desired materials. The schedule is currently subject to change, so researchers should check it frequently as they plan their visits.

Over the next year, the library will transfer about 12,000 cartons of collection material to an offsite shelving facility. This work requires the temporary closing of many of the library’s most important and frequently consulted archival collections. While temporarily closed, the collections will be unavailable for consultation in the reading room, classrooms, or for reproduction requests.

The temporary closings will be staggered throughout the year. Among collections slated to close in the spring of 2014 are the papers of Thornton Wilder, Eugene O’Neill, H.D., Langston Hughes, James Weldon and Grace Nail Johnson, and Edith Wharton. Collections to close in the fall of 2014 include the papers of Mable Dodge Luhan, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Variety review of 1918 film of The House of Mirth: “A distinctly rotten mess, well produced”

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katherineharrisbarrymore

Katherine Harris Barrymore, the Lily Bart of this film, from http://aestheteslament.blogspot.com/2012/01/well-said-lily-bart.html

As part of my current book project, Bitter Tastes: Naturalism, Early Film, and American Women’s Writing, I’ve been working with a lot of silent film resources, including reviews, in addition to writing more about Wharton.

Here’s a gem from Variety, August 23, 1918: a review of a  now-lost film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.  Excerpts:

It has been scenarioized by June Mathis for Metro, directed by Albert Capellani, photographed by Eugene Gaudio, all of it with rare excellence for the respective efforts, but the layout  is not a good one for a feature picture for the reason that the majority of the principals are a rotten set, not worth wasting time over, especially as none of them get their just desserts.  . . . And so on, etc., until you are led to believe that no one is on the level and it develops that everybody has the goods on everybody else.

At the middle of the fifth reel the aunt having died and left the girl penniless, she seeks work, doesn’t find it, she tries suicide and is rescued in time for a clinch with the lawyer.  The remainder of the cast are left to continue their incessant prowling for affairs with those of the opposite sex. 

A distinctly rotten mess, well produced. 

This was clearly an A-list production. June Mathis was a talented scenarist, famous for discovering Rudolph Valentino, and the French director Albert Capellani directed such notable films as Camille and The Red Lantern. 

Since Selden (“the lawyer”) arrives in time for a clinch rather than too late, the production delivered what W. D. Howells told her the American public always wanted to see: “a tragedy with a happy ending.” Also of interest to Wharton fans: the cast list includes “Bertha Trenor-Dorset” and “Augustus Trenor-Dorset,” a neat conflation of the Bertha and George Dorset and Judy and Gus Trenor of the novel.

“Rotten mess” though it might have been, it’s too bad that this is a lost film. Wharton would have been pleased, though, that Jolo, the reviewer for Variety, understood the “despicable” nature of the society she described.

Happy 152nd Birthday to Edith Wharton

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ImageOn January 24, 1862, a daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. George Frederic Jones of New York City.  Christened Edith Newbold Jones, she would grow up to be a great novelist and short story writer, not to mention poet, dramatist, social satirist, essayist, letter writer, gardener, interior designer, tireless director of French charities and reporter of conditions at the front during WWI, loyal friend, and a great if formidably intimidating hostess.

You can read more about her in the many books and articles that have been written about her since her death (head over to the Edith Wharton Society for some lists), but I just wanted to give her a shout-out here. (And to recognize that the term “shout-out” would have dismayed and amused her, and that she’d have given it to a vulgar character like Elmer Moffatt of The Custom of the Country or Lita of Twilight Sleep to show just how trashy they were.)

The short version of this post?  Go read Edith Wharton.  You won’t be disappointed.