Editing Edith Wharton (section)

==Writing==

===Career===
Despite not publishing her first novel until she was forty, Wharton became an extraordinarily productive writer. In addition to
her 15 novels, seven novellas, and eighty-five short stories, she published poetry, books on design, travel, literary and cultural criticism, and a memoir.{{sfn|Benstock|1994}}

In 1873, Wharton wrote a [[short story]] and gave it to her mother to read. Stinging from her mother's critique, Wharton decided to write only [[poetry]]. While she constantly sought her mother's approval and love, she rarely received either, and their relationship was a troubled one.<ref>Armitage, Robert. "Edith Wharton, A Writing Life: Childhood." New York Public Library, May 6, 2013. Web. March 11, 2015.</ref> Before she was 15, Wharton wrote ''Fast and Loose'' (1877). In her youth, she wrote about society. Her central [[theme (narrative)|theme]]s came from her experiences with her parents. She was very critical of her work and wrote public reviews criticizing it. She also wrote about her own experiences with life. "Intense Love's Utterance" is a poem written about Henry Stevens.{{sfn|Lewis|1975|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}}

In 1889, she sent out three poems for publication, to ''[[Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner's]]'', ''Harper's'' and ''[[The Century Magazine|Century]]''. [[Edward L. Burlingame]] published "The Last Giustiniani" for ''[[Scribner's Magazine|Scribner's]]''. It was not until Wharton was 29 that her first [[short story]] was published: "Mrs. Manstey's View" had very little success, and it took her more than a year to publish another story. She completed "The Fullness of Life", following her annual European trip with Teddy. Burlingame was critical of this story, but Wharton did not want to make edits to it. This story, along with many others, speaks about her marriage. She sent ''Bunner Sisters'' to Scribner's, in 1892. Burlingame wrote back that it was too long for Scribner's to publish. This story is believed to be based on an experience she had as a child. It did not see publication until 1916, and it is included in the collection called ''Xingu''.
After a visit with her friend, [[Paul Bourget]], she wrote "The Good May Come" and "The Lamp of Psyche". "The Lamp of Psyche" was a [[Comedy|comical]] story, with verbal wit and sorrow. After "Something Exquisite" was rejected by Burlingame, she lost confidence in herself. She started [[travel writing]], in 1894.{{sfn|Lewis|1975|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}}

In 1901, Wharton wrote a two-act play called ''Man of Genius''. This play was about an English man who was having an affair with his secretary. The play was rehearsed but was never produced. Another 1901 play, ''The Shadow of a Doubt'', which also came close to being staged but fell through, was thought to be lost, until it was discovered, in 2017. It had a radio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 3, in 2018.<ref>Drama on 3 [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000xfl ''The Shadow of a Doubt'']. BBC Radio 3</ref> It wouldn't be until 2023, over a century later, that the world stage premiere took place in [[Canada]] at the [[Shaw Festival]],<ref name="auto">{{cite web|title=A Lost Edith Wharton Play Is Performed for the First Time|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-lost-edith-wharton-play-is-performed-for-the-first-time-180982795/|website=[[Smithsonian Magazine]]|publisher=Smithsonian|date=August 28, 2023|access-date=January 14, 2024}}</ref> directed by Peter Hinton-Davis.

She collaborated with [[Marie Tempest]] to write another play, but the two only completed four acts, before Marie decided she was no longer interested in costume plays. One of her earliest literary endeavors (1902) was the translation of the play ''Es Lebe das Leben'' ("The Joy of Living"), by Hermann Sudermann. ''The Joy of Living'' was criticized for its title, because the heroine swallows poison, at the end, and was a short-lived [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] production. It was, however, a successful book.{{sfn|Lewis|1975|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}}

Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by subtle use of [[dramatic irony]]. Having grown up in upper-class, late-19th-century society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics, in such works as ''[[The House of Mirth]]'' and ''[[The Age of Innocence]]''.

===Themes===
{{Conservatism US}}
Versions of her mother, Lucretia Jones, often appeared in Wharton's fiction. Biographer [[Hermione Lee]] described it as "one of the most lethal acts of revenge ever taken by a writing daughter."{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=35}} In her memoir, ''A Backward Glance'', Wharton describes her mother as indolent, spendthrift, censorious, disapproving, superficial, icy, dry and ironic.{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=35}}

Wharton's writings often dealt with themes such as "social and individual fulfillment, repressed sexuality, and the manners of old families and the new elite."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Mulalic|first=Almasa|date=2012|title=Material Details in Edith Wharton's Writings|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301944958|journal=Epiphany: Journal of Transdisciplinary Studies|volume=5|pages=95–107|via=ResearchGate}}</ref> [[Maureen Howard]], editor of ''Edith Wharton: Collected Stories'', notes several recurring themes in Wharton's short stories, including confinement and attempts at freedom, the morality of the author, critiques of intellectual pretension, and the "unmasking" of the truth.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/141-remarks-on-edith-whartons-_collected-stories_-by-editor-maureen-howard|title=Remarks on Edith Wharton's Collected Stories by editor Maureen Howard|last=Howard|first=Maureen|date=2001|website=Library of America}}</ref> Wharton's writing also explored themes of "social mores and social reform" as they relate to the "extremes and anxieties of the Gilded Age".<ref name=":0" />

A key recurring theme in Wharton's writing is the relationship between the house as a physical space and its relationship to its inhabitant's characteristics and emotions. Maureen Howard argues "Edith Wharton conceived of houses, dwelling places, in extended imagery of shelter and dispossession. Houses – their confinement and their theatrical possibilities ... they are never mere settings."<ref name=":1" />

===Influences===
American children's stories containing slang were forbidden in Wharton's childhood home.{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=31}} This included such popular authors as [[Mark Twain]], [[Bret Harte]], and [[Joel Chandler Harris]]. She was allowed to read [[Louisa May Alcott]] but Wharton preferred [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' and [[Charles Kingsley]]'s ''[[The Water-Babies]], A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby''.{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=31}} Wharton's mother forbade her from reading many novels and Wharton said she "read everything else but novels until the day of my marriage."{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=31}} Instead Wharton read the classics, philosophy, history, and poetry in her father's library including [[Daniel Defoe]], [[John Milton]], [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[Alphonse de Lamartine]], [[Victor Hugo]], [[Jean Racine]], [[Thomas Moore]], [[Lord Byron]], [[William Wordsworth]], [[John Ruskin]], and [[Washington Irving]].{{sfn|Lee|2008|pp=31–34}} Biographer Hermione Lee describes Wharton as having read herself "out of Old New York" and her influences included [[Herbert Spencer]], [[Charles Darwin]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Thomas Henry Huxley|T. H. Huxley]], [[George Romanes]], [[James George Frazer|James Frazer]], and [[Thorstein Veblen]].{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=23}} These influenced her [[Ethnography|ethnographic]] style of [[novelization]].{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=23}} Wharton developed a passion for [[Walt Whitman]].{{sfn|Lee|2008|p=32}}