Edith Wharton

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

/ Donna Campbell / Leave a comment

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”

/ Donna Campbell / Leave a comment
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.