| Last Glances | |
Wharton:
Collected Stories, 1911-1937
Edited by Maureen Howard
Library of America
ISBN 1-883011-93-0
2000
Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921, which falls right in the middle of this later period. The award was based on her famous novel, "The Age of Innocence". Then, in 1923, Wharton was the first woman to receive a Doctor of Letters degree from Yale University.
The short stories
from this later period include: "Xingu, Coming Home, Autres Temps... , Kerfol,
The Long Run, The Triumph of Night, Bunner Sisters, Writing a War Story, The
Marne, Miss Mary Pask, The Young Gentlemen, Bewitched, The Seed of the Faith,
Velvet Ear-Pads, Atrophy, A Bottle of Perrier, After Holbein, Mr. Jones, Her
Son, The Day of the Funeral, A Glimpse, Joy in the House, Charm Incorporated,
Pomegranate Seed, Confession, Roman Fever, The Looking-Glass, Duration, "and
"All Souls'. "
The first story, "Xingu," first appeared in 1916, but it was written in 1911. Written in three parts, the work has what Cynthia Griffin Wolff describes as "false standards of self-esteem." Howard sums up the story quite succinctly with her parenthetical line: "in which a ladies' reading group is led to express its enthusiasm for an occult philosophy."
How fragile is life? In her short story, "Confessions," Wharton writes,"We were married; and for five years we lived our strange perilous dream of happiness. That fresh unfading happiness which now and then mocks the lot of poor mortals; but not often — and not for long." His wife dies, leaving him "alone among memories so made of light and darkness... "
Perhaps the most famous work of this lot of short stories is "Roman Fever," a story which was written after Wharton was ill with grippe in Rome. The story is about two women, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, who are travelling with their daughters. They talk about their girlhood... remembrance: "You don't remember? You don't remember goin to visit some ruins or other one evening, just after dark, and catching a bad chill? You were supposed to have gone to see the moon rise... " The story explores sexuality, jeolousy, and more.
This final volume ends with All Souls' and the final lines: "'No, no,' she said with a little shiver, whenever I touched the subject of her going back to Whitegates, 'I don't want ever to risk seeing that woman again... ' And she never went back."
As the story explains,
All Souls' eve is the night when the dead can walk — and when, by the same token, other spirits, piteous or malevolent, are also freed fromt he restrictions which secure the earth to the living on the other days of the year.
This final work of the series was written shortly before Wharton died in 1937, following several strokes. She was buried in Paris with her tombstone reading: "Ave Crux Spes Unica" ("Hail, cross, the one hope.")
Wharton's presence can still be felt... in the many works she created during her lifetime... and in the works of other writers that she influenced. In the short story, "A Glimpse," Wharton writes, "After that, I shall come back again; I shall keep on coming back; always for the same reason, I suppose."
First page > The Early Years > Page 1, 2
Maureen Howard, editor of this volume, is the author of seven novels, including Grace Abounding, Expensive Habits, Natural History, and A Lover's Almanac, and has taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. She lives in New York City.
