Old New York [Paperback]

The four short novels in this collection by the author ofThe Age of Innocenceare set in the New York of the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, each one revealing the tribal codes and customs that ruled society, portrayed with the keen style that is uniquely Edith Wharton's. Originally published in 1924 and long out of print, these tales are vintage Wharton, dealing boldly with such themes as infidelity, illegitimacy, jealousy, the class system, and the condition of women in society. Included in this remarkable quartet areFalse Dawn,which concerns the stormy relationship between a domineering father and his son;The Old Maid,the best known of the four, in which a young woman's secret illegitimate child is adopted by her best friend -- with devastating results;The Spark,about a young man's moral rehabilitation, which is sparked by a chance encounter with Walt Whitman; andNew Year's Day,an O. Henryesque tale of a married woman suspected of adultery.Old New Yorkis Wharton at her finest.America's most famous woman of letters, and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize,Edith Whartonwas born into one of the last leisured class families in New York City, as she put it, in 1862. Educated privately, she was married to Edward Wharton in 1885, and for the next few years, they spent their time in the high society of Newport (Rhode Island), then Lenox (Massachusetts) and Europe. It was in Europe that Wharton first met Henry James, who was to have a profound and lasting influence on her life and work. Wharton's first published book was a work of nonfiction, in collaboration with Ogden Codman,The Decoration of Houses(1897), but from early on, her marriage had been a source of distress, and she was advised by her doctor to write fiction to relieve her nervous tension. Wharton's first short stories appeared inScribners Magazine,and though she published several volumes of fiction around the turn of the century, including