What do you think?
Rate this book
The Stories of Edith Wharton
Combining two volumes of Wharton's short stories in a brand new edition, this outstanding selection is the most comprehensive available. Although Edith Wharton is best known for her novels The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, this extensive collection of her short fiction shows her to be a master of all its varieties. Wharton's stories ... owe their enduring power to portray the emotional consequences of life in a rarefied world."—The New York Times
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
310 pages, Hardcover
First published October 28, 2008
3 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,440 books5,269 followersEdith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.
Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.
Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.
Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.
Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.
Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Read
April 16, 2022I am a sucker for a first edition hardcover, even one unearthed in my local Little Library in slightly disheveled shape sans book jacket. But Edith Wharton no less! Author of stylized New York novels such as "The House of Mirth" and "The Age of Innocence." Little did I know she wrote short fiction as well. What a stupendous find! These 14, gathered and introduced by Anita Brookner, are published chronologically from her first short story collection, published in 1899, to the last, published in 1937, the year she died. (She wrote 85 in all.)
I expected them to be rather stuffy and not particularly pertinent to my times; how wrong I was. Wharton is a mistress at depicting relationships. There are astute observations of divorces (two in one story: "The other two"), strange alliances ("Charm Incorporated" where the rich husband supports, finds uses for and ultimately profits from his wife's varied family) and even a wonderful depiction of dementia ("After Holbein"). There are, surprisingly, two ghost stories: "Pomegranate Seed" and "All Souls" (the latter less successful). But what I most enjoyed were her depictions of married life: "The Pelican" and "The Reckoning" are outstanding. I took away a truism: keeping ones marriage sexual and alive requires one to be true to oneself. But she tells it so much better than I could.
A beautifully written, often LOL humorous, and illuminating collection.
As Brookner writes in the introduction when she speaks about the enormous power of sex: "Sex to her was nor merely an affair of the body but the untrammeled enjoyment of will and of destiny. .. thus many of her novels, and many more of her stories, have to do with a particularly worrying situation: how to preserve the freedom of an affair within the bounds of marriage, or, alternatively, how to safeguard and affair by turning it into a marriage." p viii
Other passages that pleased:
From "The Reckoning" : "She, for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretense of which she had been a victim: the pretense that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace." p 53/4
AND
"People grew at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. ... Each partner to the contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of self-development, on pain of losing the other's respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live together from moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self" p 54.
From "The Letters" : “…it is not the kiss endured, but the kiss returned, that lives.” p.92
From "The Long run": "'I said just now "her friendship"; and I used the word advisedly. Love is deeper than friendship, but friendship is a good deal wider. The beauty of our relations was that it included both dimensions. Our thoughts met as naturally as our eyes; it was almost as if we loved each other because we liked each other. The quality of a love may be tested by the amount of friendship it contains.” p 154
I expected them to be rather stuffy and not particularly pertinent to my times; how wrong I was. Wharton is a mistress at depicting relationships. There are astute observations of divorces (two in one story: "The other two"), strange alliances ("Charm Incorporated" where the rich husband supports, finds uses for and ultimately profits from his wife's varied family) and even a wonderful depiction of dementia ("After Holbein"). There are, surprisingly, two ghost stories: "Pomegranate Seed" and "All Souls" (the latter less successful). But what I most enjoyed were her depictions of married life: "The Pelican" and "The Reckoning" are outstanding. I took away a truism: keeping ones marriage sexual and alive requires one to be true to oneself. But she tells it so much better than I could.
A beautifully written, often LOL humorous, and illuminating collection.
As Brookner writes in the introduction when she speaks about the enormous power of sex: "Sex to her was nor merely an affair of the body but the untrammeled enjoyment of will and of destiny. .. thus many of her novels, and many more of her stories, have to do with a particularly worrying situation: how to preserve the freedom of an affair within the bounds of marriage, or, alternatively, how to safeguard and affair by turning it into a marriage." p viii
Other passages that pleased:
From "The Reckoning" : "She, for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretense of which she had been a victim: the pretense that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace." p 53/4
AND
"People grew at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. ... Each partner to the contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of self-development, on pain of losing the other's respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live together from moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self" p 54.
From "The Letters" : “…it is not the kiss endured, but the kiss returned, that lives.” p.92
From "The Long run": "'I said just now "her friendship"; and I used the word advisedly. Love is deeper than friendship, but friendship is a good deal wider. The beauty of our relations was that it included both dimensions. Our thoughts met as naturally as our eyes; it was almost as if we loved each other because we liked each other. The quality of a love may be tested by the amount of friendship it contains.” p 154
July 12, 2019
Edith Wharton is best-known for writing classic novels like The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and The Age of Innocence. However, Wharton also published some 85 short stories throughout her career. The Stories of Edith Wharton, a 1988 collection, gathers together 14 of Wharton’s short stories. The stories are presented in chronological order and span her entire career, from her first short story collection, published in 1899, to the last, published in 1937, the year she died.
The stories in this collection were selected by Anita Brookner, a British art historian who became an acclaimed novelist herself—her 1984 novel Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize. I didn’t read Brookner’s introduction to the book until I had finished all of the stories, since modern introductions have the terrible habit of often spoiling the plot. (I’m looking at you, Matthew J. Bruccoli’s introduction to The Great Gatsby!) Fortunately, Brookner does not spoil any key plot details in her brief introduction to the book. All 14 of the stories included in this volume show Wharton’s masterful skills at work.
Wharton was very familiar with the subjects she wrote about. She was born Edith Jones into a wealthy New York City family, who may have inspired the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Edith was married to Edward “Teddy” Wharton when she was 23 years old. Their marriage was not a very happy one, and eventually Edith divorced Teddy in 1913.
You might hear the name Edith Wharton and be distracted by visions of Gilded Age New York City and cushy rich people. You might think her writing is all stuffy mansions, tight corsets, and repressed feelings. But that stereotype does Wharton’s writing a disservice. These stories are still relevant, as they show us human behavior, both good and bad, that is universal. There are divorces—even two in the humorous story “The Other Two”—and there are affairs—of the heart, if not the entire body. Wharton’s writing style still feels modern today, as it is clear and direct, but mixed with a keen eye towards social status and more than a dollop of humor and wit. Here’s the first paragraph from “The Pelican,” the first short story in the collection, from 1898:
“She was very pretty when I first knew her, with the sweet straight nose and short upper-lip of the cameo-brooch divinity, humanized by a dimple that flowered in her cheek whenever anything was said possessing the outward attributes of humor without its intrinsic quality. For the dear lady was providentially deficient in humor: the least hint of the real thing clouded her lovely eye like the hovering shadow of an algebraic problem.” (p.1)
That’s superb writing, and it paints a vivid picture of the character. Wharton’s keen empathy allowed her to enter other people’s points of view—“The Pelican” and some of the other stories collected here are told in the first person by male narrators.
Wharton’s sharp wit is on excellent display in the story “The Mission of Jane,” where these two quotes come from:
“Most of his wife’s opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and saw no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable.” (p.33)
“It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.” (p.34)
“Charm Incorporated” is the funniest story in the book, a light trifle about a man who must constantly take care of his eccentric, but charming, in-laws. The story features this funny and insightful quote:
“Besides, Targett’s imagination was not particularly active, and as he was always sure of a good meal himself, it never much disturbed him to be told that others were not.” (p.272)
Another humorous quote that I quite enjoyed is from the story “The Last Asset”:
“…there was about him a boundless desultoriness which renewed Garnett’s conviction that there is no one on Earth as idle as an American who is not busy.” (p.66)
Wharton is always excellent on the subjects of love and desire, and the following were some of my favorite quotes from these stories:
“…it is not the kiss endured, but the kiss returned, that lives.” (p.92)
“It was horrible to know too much; there was always blood in the foundations.” (p.117)
“She was sure he felt sorry for her, sorrier perhaps than anyone had ever felt; but he had always paid her the supreme tribute of not showing it.” (p.122)
“Our thoughts met as naturally as our eyes: it was almost as if we loved each other because we liked each other. The quality of a love may be tested by the amount of friendship it contains.” (p.153)
“He supposed afterward that what had happened to him was what people called falling in love.” (p.272)
Wharton wrote a fair number of stories that deal with the supernatural, and two are included in this volume. “Pomegranate Seed” tells the tale of a woman whose husband receives sporadic letters from a mysterious party. “All Souls’” the last story in the book, is quite creepy, and features this great quote at the beginning:
“I read the other day in a book by a fashionable essayist that ghosts went out when electric light came in. What nonsense!” (p.291)
If you enjoy short fiction, chances are you’ll find something that moves you in The Stories of Edith Wharton.
The stories in this collection were selected by Anita Brookner, a British art historian who became an acclaimed novelist herself—her 1984 novel Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize. I didn’t read Brookner’s introduction to the book until I had finished all of the stories, since modern introductions have the terrible habit of often spoiling the plot. (I’m looking at you, Matthew J. Bruccoli’s introduction to The Great Gatsby!) Fortunately, Brookner does not spoil any key plot details in her brief introduction to the book. All 14 of the stories included in this volume show Wharton’s masterful skills at work.
Wharton was very familiar with the subjects she wrote about. She was born Edith Jones into a wealthy New York City family, who may have inspired the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Edith was married to Edward “Teddy” Wharton when she was 23 years old. Their marriage was not a very happy one, and eventually Edith divorced Teddy in 1913.
You might hear the name Edith Wharton and be distracted by visions of Gilded Age New York City and cushy rich people. You might think her writing is all stuffy mansions, tight corsets, and repressed feelings. But that stereotype does Wharton’s writing a disservice. These stories are still relevant, as they show us human behavior, both good and bad, that is universal. There are divorces—even two in the humorous story “The Other Two”—and there are affairs—of the heart, if not the entire body. Wharton’s writing style still feels modern today, as it is clear and direct, but mixed with a keen eye towards social status and more than a dollop of humor and wit. Here’s the first paragraph from “The Pelican,” the first short story in the collection, from 1898:
“She was very pretty when I first knew her, with the sweet straight nose and short upper-lip of the cameo-brooch divinity, humanized by a dimple that flowered in her cheek whenever anything was said possessing the outward attributes of humor without its intrinsic quality. For the dear lady was providentially deficient in humor: the least hint of the real thing clouded her lovely eye like the hovering shadow of an algebraic problem.” (p.1)
That’s superb writing, and it paints a vivid picture of the character. Wharton’s keen empathy allowed her to enter other people’s points of view—“The Pelican” and some of the other stories collected here are told in the first person by male narrators.
Wharton’s sharp wit is on excellent display in the story “The Mission of Jane,” where these two quotes come from:
“Most of his wife’s opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and saw no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable.” (p.33)
“It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.” (p.34)
“Charm Incorporated” is the funniest story in the book, a light trifle about a man who must constantly take care of his eccentric, but charming, in-laws. The story features this funny and insightful quote:
“Besides, Targett’s imagination was not particularly active, and as he was always sure of a good meal himself, it never much disturbed him to be told that others were not.” (p.272)
Another humorous quote that I quite enjoyed is from the story “The Last Asset”:
“…there was about him a boundless desultoriness which renewed Garnett’s conviction that there is no one on Earth as idle as an American who is not busy.” (p.66)
Wharton is always excellent on the subjects of love and desire, and the following were some of my favorite quotes from these stories:
“…it is not the kiss endured, but the kiss returned, that lives.” (p.92)
“It was horrible to know too much; there was always blood in the foundations.” (p.117)
“She was sure he felt sorry for her, sorrier perhaps than anyone had ever felt; but he had always paid her the supreme tribute of not showing it.” (p.122)
“Our thoughts met as naturally as our eyes: it was almost as if we loved each other because we liked each other. The quality of a love may be tested by the amount of friendship it contains.” (p.153)
“He supposed afterward that what had happened to him was what people called falling in love.” (p.272)
Wharton wrote a fair number of stories that deal with the supernatural, and two are included in this volume. “Pomegranate Seed” tells the tale of a woman whose husband receives sporadic letters from a mysterious party. “All Souls’” the last story in the book, is quite creepy, and features this great quote at the beginning:
“I read the other day in a book by a fashionable essayist that ghosts went out when electric light came in. What nonsense!” (p.291)
If you enjoy short fiction, chances are you’ll find something that moves you in The Stories of Edith Wharton.
July 24, 2024
This is a superb collection of short stories as selected by Anita Brookner who provided an introduction. Wharton’s short stories pack the observational skills of her work as a novelist with a sense of the dramatic turn of fortune that marked her novel House of Mirth. I particularly enjoyed ‘The Mission of Jane’, a story about an adoption of a gifted child into a well-to-do couple’s home, ‘Her Son’, about a grief-stricken mother’s discovery of a child she believes to be the grown up infant she had abandoned in her youth, and ‘Charm Incorporated’, the story of a man who marries an impoverished refugee who comes with a vast family of needy souls all requiring employment, advantageous marriages, and lots of support. Wharton’s vast experience of upper-class turn of the century New York society and her long experience of life in Europe during and after the First World War color her writing and open up a world to the reader. I highly recommend this volume.
October 3, 2020
Edith Wharton started her career as a short story writer, later becoming known for her novels. I’m concluding that with the exceptions of Tolstoy and Dickens, writers have such widely differing writing styles between their novels and their shorter stories that I find myself bemused that the same hand penned them both. Wharton’s novels feel heavy and somewhat opaque to me, and I’ve abandoned at least one of them (The Ambassadors). Her short stories are ok and I’m not having to slog through them. There’s no denying that these are lightweight compared to her novels. Also, the short story voicing is rather uniform from story to story. I’m comparing Wharton to Willa Cather, who appeared more chameleon-like. Variation is more interesting.
April 5, 2019
Intéressantes et surprenantes courtes histoires dans ce style précis et suranné d'Édith Wharton. Des personnages, issus d'une certaine classe (upper east side), vivant dans un New-York qui n'existe plus...
May 2, 2019
Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors. I enjoy the short story format. This seems like the perfect combination. I only liked some of these stories. I've read others by Wharton that I enjoyed more. The beauty of this format is that the one you don't like will be over soon.
December 29, 2011
With copyrights expired, Edith Wharton's short stories are fair game and have been published in numerous collections. This one is a Volume-2 and it reads like it -- the good stuff has all been taken. The only virtue to this collection lies in learning Wharton could be second-rate and predictable, after all. I would skip this sorry package, put together by Anita Brookner, and look instead to Volume-1 of a different selection collected by Maureen Howard.
May 14, 2015
Edith Wharton wrote at the turn of the Century and the situations and social mores she wove into her prose could easily be current today. Magnificently written, there is a jarring bite of reality in each story that keeps you thinking even after you've turned the page.
September 26, 2011
I am a fan of Edith Wharton AND a fan of short stories. What more can I say? I wasn't disappointed.
Read
August 30, 2020I'm not much of a short story person. I'll keep trying.
Some of these were very mysterious.
Some of these were very mysterious.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews