Old New York

Old New York #1-4

by Edith Wharton

Spanning four decades in the mid-nineteenth century, the interconnected novellas of Old New York lay out in vivid detail the complex and inscrutable codes, customs, and taboos of New York society in classic Wharton style.

In False Dawn (1840s), Mr. Halston Raycie sends his son Lewis to Europe to buy art, as Mr. Raycie aims to ascend to the upper crust of society by means of a well-respected art collection. But when Lewis returns from Europe with daring pieces by artists unknown to the New York socialites and tastemakers, his appalled father disinherits him, only to discover, too late, the wisdom of his son's intuition.

The Old Maid (1850s), the best known of the four novellas, follows the life of Tina, a young woman caught between the mother who adopted her--the beautiful, upstanding Delia--and her true mother, her plain, unmarried aunt Charlotte, who gave Tina up to provide her with a socially acceptable life. The three women live quietly together until Tina's wedding day, when Delia's and Charlotte's hidden jealousies rush to the surface.

Then in The Spark (1860s), Mr. Hayley Delane recounts how his life has turned out since he was wounded in the Civil War, where, during his rehabilitation, he chances to meet a certain American poet whose memory stays with him all his life.

And finally in New Year's Day (1870s), Mrs. Lizzie Hazeldean's suspected affair with the unmarried Henry Prest is the center of scandal and gossip in the city, but the true nature of the relationship is not what it may seem.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, New York, Historical Fiction, American, Novella

296 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Edith 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.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lately I have been reading Edith Wharton and Henry James in an interspersed fashion. James I am following chronologically, Wharton I am not but I wish I were. Most of these works are rereads and I am delighted to be visiting some of these books for a second time. This was particularly the case with Old New Yok. It became a New Old New York for me.

I picked it up as I was getting on a plane to fly to NY. For this visit I had decided to concentrate on the architecture of the city, both the old buildings and the history of how NY was planned out, as well as some of the more recent buildings. For this I had read The City Observed: N.Y. .

Wharton's novellas, published in 1924, are also laid out historically, covering the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s and 1870s. So they fall under the category of historical fiction. Although Wharton includes as subtitle to each of her novellas the decade on which it is concentrated, her narration often is set in a later date at which a 'narrator' tells us what had happened 'before'.

There is a fair amount of I was not so aware of this in my first read. This time I was also conscientiously tracking any topographical references to the city and trying to imagine it visually. My (mentally) visual landmarks were amongst others Trinity Church, which by the 1840s was already its third building. This church was the tallest building in the city until the Brooklyn Bridge was finished in 1883. So the reader really has to erase from one's mind a great deal of what he/she knows about the appearance of New York.




The first story, False Dawn, or the 1840s, seemed just a bit forced or far fetched since one of the themes, the change in art historical appreciation that took place, mostly in England, during the 19thC and led by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood officially began in 1848. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading the philistine atmosphere Wharton creates in which the appreciation of the early Italian Renaissance painters (Piero, Angelico, 'Carpatcher', Giotto) is ironically derided. I also had to smile when I came upon:

Ruskin--Ruskin--just plain John Ruskin, eh? And who is this great John Ruskin, who stets God's A'mighty right in his judgments? Who'd you say John Ruskin's father was, now?"

and

You said there was a Mr Brown and a Mr Hunt and a Mr Rossiter, was it?

The second novella, The Old Maid, or the 1850s, is widely seen as the most accomplished one. The analyses of character are captivating. But again, following my new interest I was centered on any topographical mentioning of Gramercy Park, Irving Place, the Bowery and Waverly Place. The names also captivated me, seeing them as shadows of the gilded ones, such as the Vandergraves (Vanderbilts), the Ralstons (Randolphs), the Lovells (Lowels). As I found it striking that the Dutch continued to make such a strong colonial presence given that the new York had been the old new Amsterdam for only thirty-nine years.



The third one, The Spark, or the 1860s, inevitably had to have allusions to the Civil War, but for these to work with some perspective, the tale had to be told about three decades later. After having read the ambivalent reaction of the James family regarding the war, in this read I was paying attention to the reaction of the characters in general about those who did or did not participate in the fight. This is possibly the weakest of the four novellas, and it again acquired a contrived flavor easily generated in historical fiction. The mysterious personage had to be Walt Whitman, of course. Who else?


Frank Weston Benson, Portrait of a Lady. 1901.

The last one, New Year's Day, or the 1870s, is very much à la Wharton in the development of the main female character. But here I was paying attention too to the chameleonic nature of 5th Avenue where both mansions and hotels in which women could gamble their reputation coexisted.

And so when coming to the end one imagines the author seeing herself and her younger double facing this lost panorama:

And they breathed a joint sigh over the vanished 'Old New York' of their youth, the exclusive and impenetrable New York to which Rubini and Jenny Lind had sung and Mr Thackeray lectured, the New Hork which had declined to receive Charles Dickens, and which, our of revenge, he had do scandalously ridiculed.

[Susan Budd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really couldn’t care less about rich people’s problems. Coming as I do from a long and illustrious line of poor people, I have that instinctive disdain that the poor harbor for the rich. But Edith Wharton always manages to overcome my working class superiority and, for a time, force me to care as much for the blue-blooded as the blue-collared. That’s how well she writes.

I must also confess that I enjoy her stories of “Old New York”—The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence, and now this collection of four novellas. But the “Old New York” of Edith Wharton is not the “Old New York” of my ancestors.

In The Old Maid, little Teena is cared for by a poor Irish woman and it is this woman who would bear the closest resemblance to one of my foremothers, not the high society ladies who are described in such brilliant prose. I almost feel like I should read How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis as a countermeasure, lest I feel sympathy for Charlotte Lovell or Delia Ralston. For, while Wharton was writing books like The Decoration of Houses (1897) and Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904), Riis was writing The Battle with the Slum (1901) and Children of the Tenements (1903). But Wharton writes so well that I can’t help but read her. She writes so authentically that I can’t help but believe her. And she writes with such heart that I can’t help but care about her characters.

Reading Wharton allows me to imagine myself as a member of the elite class, to picture myself dressing for dinner, attending balls, and touring Europe, but the mere mention of Bridget, the poor woman in charge of Charlotte Lovell’s destitute children, brings me back down to Earth, to the “Old New York” of my family’s history, to my own childhood neighborhood of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, to mothers who worked in factories to supplement their husband’s meagre incomes, to the anxiety leading up to the landlord’s monthly visit to collect the rent, and to dull summer evenings when hard-working people sat on their stoops with their little pails of beer while the children played in the street.

“In a shabby white-washed room a dozen children, gathered about a stove, were playing with broken toys. The Irishwoman who had charge of them was cutting out small garments on a broken-legged deal table” (106).

Wharton wasn’t oblivious to the poor. She writes about poverty in Ethan Frome. She is able to depict the stable where the destitute children receive charity from their betters, their crumbs from the upper crust. But Wharton writes what she knows and what she knows is wealth and luxury and privilege and all the apparently stifling traditions that go along with being a member of the American aristocracy. She portrays a world that few had the good fortune to experience and she does so with a genius that is uniquely hers. So I must put aside my contempt for the one percent from time to time and read her.

[Duane Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Henry James first letter to Edith Wharton, beginning what would be a long friendship, he advised her to write about what she was most familiar with, New York. That would set her on the course of writing what would come to define her literary legacy, her three classic novels of New York society, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, and The Custom of the Country. The four novellas in this collection also follow this theme, and they were written when Wharton was at the height of her profession.

4.5 stars

[Chavelli Sulikowska · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore books about or set in New York. I am not sure why. I am simply inexplicably captivated by this city as an urban environment in film and literature, particularly ‘old New York,’ the nostalgic version of the twenties and thirties and even forties. My favourite building in the entire world is the Chrysler. So, the title of this novel grabbed me first off. Wharton is of course better known for her classic, House of Mirth, among others, which I am yet to read. This collection has for me, certainly proven her literary skill.

Born and bred a New Yorker from an established, prominent family, Wharton casts an expert eye over her city, it’s people and it’s prejudices. While she was a product of this high society, the New York money you could say, she was also one of its greatest critics. She felt stifled by the old way and norms, the champagne breakfasts and incessant scandal and gossip – the keeping up with the Jones’. She particularly disliked the delegation of women to mere objects that should be pretty to the eye and quiet to the ear, remaining uneducated and uninvolved with the impossibility of improving their situations independently outside marriage. Wharton points out in these stories that even though a marriage may secure a financial future, it also secured a permanent loss of freedom in most cases and often an even deeper unhappiness than the much maligned spinsterhood!

The stories are all stand alone and are very much centred on the city as location. They are a critique and commentary on the issues that obviously bugged Wharton so deeply. Issues to do with elitism, social repression, the denial of women and the importance of education to mitigate so many of these wrongs. For Wharton, New York in all it’s excitement and glamour was nonetheless an ‘ugly’ city – probably why she quit it and moved to Paris permanently. But clearly NYC continued to fascinate because most of her novels are set there – or is it a case of ‘write what you know…’

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Edith Wharton. I love her writing style, her insights, her understanding of the world of upper-crust New York (a world I can only ever get a glimpse of through the eyes of others), and her even deeper understanding of the human heart. I cannot say I am always fond of the short-story as a genre, but these novellas are really just short stories, and I enjoyed them every one.

In False Dawn, she shows us the ridiculous criteria on which the values of society are sometimes based and the injustice that can be heaped upon the head of a man who steps outside the norms others have set for him.

The Old Maid was my favorite in the book and the reason I elected a 5-star instead of a 4-star rating. This story, that deals with an illegitimate child and how the situation is handled by the mother and her cousin, is a perfect short story/novella for me. The subject matter is one we so seldom see addressed during this time, being as taboo a thing to speak of as to do. The ironies are myriad and the feelings of the two women are as sharp as broken glass.

Both The Spark and New Year's Day are interesting and well written. The latter particularly impressed me for its illustration of how things are not always what they seem to be and how often we think we know about someone from what we observe and have them pegged completely wrong.

As with all of her works, these have elements of tragedy that run through them like rising rivers. They swell and overflow and the characters themselves are at their mercy and stand no chance of stemming the waters. Perhaps growing up in Old New York, a privileged daughter of a very wealthy man, Edith Wharton was accustomed to others looking at her life and believing it perfect and blessed. Perhaps, from the inside, she saw how imperfect life could be regardless of the money or status one held. She certainly became a master at conveying that in her stories. Her ability to find the humanity in the midst of the oppressive societal conventions made her the first woman to win the Pulitizer Prize, a distinction she well deserved.

[Vishakha · Rating 4 out of 5]

**Updated review including the remaining stories**
This book by Edith Wharton, like most of her works, deals with the conflict between individual purpose and societal expectations. Through the lens of 4 different stories, each one talking about a different decade in the 1800s, we get to see how the closely-knit and tightly controlled New York elite conducted themselves in their private and public lives. Every action was ruthlessly scrutinized and accounted for; each step had to be taken with universal caution as any lapse could taint the steadfastly spotless names of their families. In spite of this, a small section of both men and women lived life on their own terms which Edith Wharton describes as “subtle revolts against the heartlessness of social routine”

In the second novella called “Old Maid”, two young women who are bound by social customs stand up for love. In the 1850s, an unmarried woman, Charlotte, has to abandon her newborn child in the interest of propriety. Her married cousin, Delia, comes to her rescue and promises to take care of the foundling baby, Tina. Delia has her own way of carrying things off where she does not explain her action, "behaving as if nothing had happened that needed to be accounted for" and the society desists from speculation. In a time when anchoring yourself to a man was the most acceptable goal of womanhood, Charlotte stays unmarried to stay close to Tina and lives with her as an aunt. The beauty of this story lies in the tender and complex relationship that Tina’s two mothers share as they oscillate between extreme emotions for each other. Charlotte is deeply grateful to Delia for loving her daughter as her own but at the same time, she seethes with resentment as Delia is the object of motherly affection for Tina. The more practical Delia pities the passionate Charlotte who has been forced to stifle her motherhood but this feeling is tinged with jealousy –Tina is a constant reminder of a future relinquished as she was also in love with Tina’s biological father. And sometimes this force of bitterness becomes overpowering – not leading to any open disagreements but stirring up rancor which finds its way into their hearts so often, bringing about friction followed by repentance.

The remaining stories pale in comparison to "Old Maid". Though they have the usual Wharton trademark, chronicling the silent dual between society and individuality, and are very well written, they don't shimmer as bright as the centerpiece. In the last story, "New Year's Day", the wife's philandering actions have a slightly melodramatic justification which failed to satisfy me. The remaining two stories "False Dawn" and "The Spark" are intricate in their depiction of the behaviour expected of the members of this coterie and the socially sanctioned castigation for those who don't confirm. Four decades is a considerable period for a shift in social conventions yet this clique of New Yok's elite doesn't readily change its ways during the course of these four stories. 

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine series of, as Wharton called them, novelettes. My edition is a re-issue by Virago Modern Classics with an Introduction by Marilyn French (I like Virago books because they either have a Foreword or Afterword, and more often than not help me understand more of what I just read! Dr. French was a feminist author who wrote ‘The Women’s Room’ and ‘From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women‘.)

I liked the second novelette, ‘The Old Maid’, the most. The two main protagonists are Delia Ralston and Charlotte Lovell, who are cousins. Charlotte has a baby out of wedlock and in that day and age and that strata of society, that is anathema. On the eve of her wedding day, Charlotte has cold feet and wants to back out of the wedding because she can’t bear leaving her child behind in an orphanage. Delia decides on a course of action and indeed the wedding does not take place, but Delia, who is married and has two children, arranges the situation where she takes in the child and at the same time takes in Charlotte. To the child, Tina, Delia is her mother and Charlotte is Aunt Charlotte. On the eve of Tina’s wedding, Charlotte wants to reveal to Tina that she is her real mother. Delia is aghast and can’t believe why Charlotte would be so cruel for revealing such a secret and at such an inopportune time. I am inclined to agree with Delia but the situation is more complex than it appears. However, the situation is resolved nicely.

One thing I really liked about the novelette was how Delia more than once was unhappy with Charlotte’s behaviors and/or plans, but forced herself to put herself in Charlotte’s shoes. I very much admired Delia for that, because she could have taken the easy way out and not done that...on at least two separate occasions. As a reader I was on a roller coaster...thinking Charlotte was not good, then after Delia puts herself in Charlotte’s shoes then I see Charlotte’s side of things and she is once again in my good graces, and this happens more than once in the story. What a well-written novelette! 5 stars from me. 🙂 🙃 🙂 🙃

I liked the other three novelettes well enough. Each of the four stories are told about a difference decade of life involving filthy rich people in high society in New York City.

False Dawn — set in the 1840s — 3 stars
• Rich old windbag has two daughters (so he has to marry them off) and one son, and on the son’s 21st birthday sends him on a 2-year around-the-world tour so he can grow up and sew his wild oats (yeesh), and in addition, buy really nice and expensive and famous paintings so the windbag can have his own private art gallery. Well things don’t run out as planned (the old windbag’s plans).
The Old Maid — set in the 1850s — 3 stars
• Comments are above
The Spark — set in the 1860s — 3 stars
• A rich man who marries a woman who isn’t very nice to him...he is a Civil War veteran who cannot remember a person’s name who took care of him in an army hospital while recovering from a war wound, and it was that person who provided a spark which influenced how he approached life and the people he met...that person was Walt Whitman.
New Year’s Day — set in the 1870s — 3 stars
• A married woman has an affair with a rich unmarried man and he gives her money...the woman’s intentions and what the money goes for is actually surprising.

Reviews
• Really thorough and nice review of the books... http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2020/08/...
• http://agirlwalksintoabookstore.blogs...

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This turned out to be one of my favorite Wharton works. It appears that Wharton may have been at her peek in the first half of the 1920s as this book was published in 1924, near personal faves Glimpses of the Moon in 1922, The Mother’s Recompense in 1925 and The Age of Innocence in 1920. I thought the introduction of characters from The Age of Innocence in several of these stories was a nice touch.
I enjoyed all four stories in this collection and, while The Old Maid may be the only obvious 5-star story, New Year’s Day is close, and all four stories are at least four star reads. I will rate this book as 5 stars. The following is my review of each story.

FALSE DAWN
This was a particularly good tale, with an unusual plot. It comments on 1840s New York upper class behavior through the interesting devise of a young scion trying to go against social conventions and do something more creative while accumulating an aristocratic personal art collection. The story is about the consequences of the young scion's method of collecting.
I thought the plot and character motivations were well done. The character development was not as full as I desired, but that is largely because of the ending, which involves an objective look back rather than any revelation of the principal characters’ thoughts and feelings about the ending events. However, the ending is typical of her work, as it leaves the reader in a state of wistful melancholy and is a very satisfying ending and story.

THE OLD MAID
This is generally considered to be the best of the four and I would agree. It has the advantage of being the longest, giving Wharton more time for character development. I find the two cousins, Delia and Charlotte to be remarkable creations so full of characteristics, motivations, and desires that I could not fully anticipate what they would say and do in a situation.
Delia is the main character, and it is her thoughts and actions that the reader identifies with. She has flaws, many typical of her social strata, but tries to overcome these and do what she thinks is best. Delia’s struggles with both self-realization and empathy with her cousin Charlotte result in interesting dialogues between the cousins that form the basis for a strong story.
The dialogues seemed play-like to me and I have subsequently found that the story was adapted into a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and then a movie. The events and dialogues often evoked strong feelings in me, culminating in an ending that brought mist to my eyes.
I thought this one of the best plotted and strongest characterizations of all of Wharton’s works, A 5-star story.

THE SPARK
While allegedly a story of the 1860s, the story actually details events in the 1890s with flashbacks to events that occurred during the Civil War of the 1860s. This was an odd one, definitely more worthy of a short story than a novel treatment. It’s more of a character study, with a first-person narrator commenting on the central character, like a Nick Carraway talking about Gatsby. Through this study, Wharton does get to make her typical observations and critiques of both the ‘required’ and idiosyncratic behaviors of the New York aristocracy. I was entertained and quite interested in the characterizations and behavioral observations of the main character and his wife. However, the story seemed to meander and, in the end, which contained a surprise revelation, I thought the story did kind of go nowhere. However, it is intended as more of a character portrait than a well-plotted story. Odd but enjoyable.

NEW YEAR'S DAY
The story is about the 1870s but, like some of the others, has scenes set in other decades. I really enjoyed this one. The story is about a young woman, Lizzie Hazeldean, a member of New York society though not born into it. As usual, Wharton’s critiques and observations of the society denizens are exemplary.
The story details the events after some society members observe Lizzie as she engages in an affair with another society male during a time when her husband is home deathly ill. Like the Old Maid characters, Lizzie is another great Wharton’s creation. Lizzie’s actual motivations and desires are interesting and unanticipated. I found the story extremely satisfying.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.75] A nice sampling of Wharton - I really enjoyed 3 of the 4 novellas in this collection. I tried reading Spark but couldn't finish it. Wharton is at her strongest when she focuses on women and their unequal status to men as in The Old Maid and New Year's Day.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

False Dawn. 4 stars
The Old Maid. 4 stars
Th Spark. 3 stars
New Year’s Day. 4 stars

I had read the first two stories before, but I liked The Old Maid better on my second reading. New Year’s Day surprised me the most. A wife treated her husband and her lover in exactly the way each deserved and she paid a price that she thought was absolutely worth it. Lovely story.

[Melanie THEE Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors, The Age of Innocence remains one of my favorite novels.No one writes about rich people shenanigans with humanity the way that she does. This book contains 4 novellas set within different decades. In these novellas, you see how each character(s) deals with their passions, losses and disappointments within the confides and expectations of New York society.

PS: My favorite novellas were The Old Maid (the 50s) and and New Years Day (the 70s): two novellas with a common theme. They were both about complicated women (who “good” society had ignored, judged or cast aside) willing to make enormous sacrifices to ensure that their loved ones were safe, happy and cherished.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Wharton was born into the world of wealthy "Old New York" society and her key to success as an author may have been writing about what she knew. Not having read any of the biographical works about her, I assume that she participated in Society to the extent that was necessary for acceptance and survival as a woman of that era. Yet she possessed, and used in her writing, the ability to step back and view the expectations of that Society with "double-vision" -- both as the "insider" who understood it and as an "outsider" who could evaluate it objectively.

I admire Wharton for her ability to see both the fine details and the Big Picture. Her gift for details gives us the believable and lovable one-of-a-kind characters which populate all of her works -- people whose lives, perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, are out of step with the accepted norms of "Society". Whereas their peers treat these characters with disdain, "cutting" them for their deviance from socially acceptable behaviour, Wharton treats them with gentleness, understanding, and compassion. These four stories, representing New York Society during four different decades of the 19th century, each feature a character of this type.

The first story, False Dawn (The Forties), presents a young man who, during his pre-marital "Grand Tour" of Europe and the Near East, is tasked by his father with purchasing a private collection of Old Masters. Instead, he proudly brings home pieces of art which he personally prefers and is disinherited by the old gentleman for bringing home such rubbish.

The Old Maid (The Fifties) is a heart-wrenching story about two cousins who were inseparable as children. They make very different life-choices and, when their paths cross later in life, live together but grow apart. Wharton very boldly addresses (among other issues) the nature of motherhood and of women's relationships with each other. This is a story with a message which still reverberates in the 21st century.

The Spark (The Sixties) is a fascinating story of a veteran of the Civil War who is misunderstood by his Society friends. He is a mysterious character who makes a compassionate decision which causes his isolation from his wife and child as well as from Society. Although he was influenced by war-time experiences of another era (when PTSD was called by another name), this man's story speaks across the ages to modern readers.

New Year's Day (The Seventies) is (in my opinion) the crowning glory of the collection -- one of only a handful of stories which has ever (in my memory) left me in tears! It is the story of an "outsider" who is reluctantly accepted by Society by virtue of her husband's status; of the decisions which she makes in order to provide financially during his illness; and of her ability to rise above the judgments of Society and, as a widow, open her heart and home with grace and hospitality.

An absolutely spectacular collection of novellas! Highly recommended, especially to lovers of the work of Edith Wharton.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wharton rarely disappoints. This is another anthology of novellas dedicated to the themes familiar to all Wharton readers - stifling constraints of Gilded Age New York society, utter dependence of women, etc.

The collection contains 4 stories, each set in a different decade of the 19th century. "False Dawn" deals with the consequences of being different, even in a trite matter of preference in art. "The Old Maid" is an interesting account of an aftermath of an illicit affair where two women are drawn into a very complex relationship raising an illegitimate child. "The Spark" explores (I think) an influence of a chance meeting on a man's character. "New Year's Day" is a story of a woman engaged in adultery whose reasons for being unfaithful are not quite what you expect them to be.

Unlike another anthology I recently read ("Roman Fever and Other Stories") this book is very uneven. "The Old Maid" and "New Year's Day" are the best, "False Dawn" a little underwhelming, but still good, and "Spark" is a definite disappointment (too unresolved and muddled). But nevertheless, Wharton, as always, delivers.

Reading challenge: #19.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's no secret that I have a girly hard-on for Edith Wharton, and I wear that badge proudly. She wrote fantastic novels, exquisite short stories, and now I've experienced her novellas. (Not to mention her work during the war and her wonderful sense of interior design.) She did it all amazingly.

Here are four novellas of, what else, New York society. Each story is of a different decade: False Dawn takes places in the 1840s, telling the story of a troubled father/son relationship; The Old Maid took on the 50s and is about a woman who has an illegitimate child that is adopted by her BFF; The Spark for the 60s is about a young man whose life is forever changed by a meeting with Walt Whitman; and New Year's Day takes place in the 70s, and is as yummy as any of O. Henry's stories.

Wharton's ability to tell such complete stories in as few pages as she did always blows my mind. Even in her short stories she manages to write whole characters, complete with flaws and imperfections; in these novellas she's able to do the same and then even a little bit more. I don't feel like I missed anything, or that they could have been improved if they were complete novels. Wharton had the skill to know when a story was finished which is why, in my opinion, there's not a bad one in the lot.

[Mercurialgem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this more than a month ago and my memory isn't that good with names and details but I can say that what I did like about this book was how she could put a really good story into a short story. Meaning each story in the book could have been a book but she was able to condense it with just the right essential details that it was like you got a whole book's worth into this nice short story. And in this book I believe there were four stories. I really enjoyed each and the fact that there was always an end and one of the stories that comes to mind is the one about the guy that bought all that artwork........I like how we got to know what happened to it generations later.

[Terris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved these four stories of 1800's "Old New York" told in Edith Wharton's signature style. Each tale has just a slight twist that changes the whole story around!

She is just a lovely writer and an amazing storyteller. Can't wait to read more of hers!

[Rana Al-alwani · Rating 3 out of 5]

رباعية نيويورك القديمة لــ إيدث وورتن ، الكاتبة الأمريكية من مواليد مدينة نيويورك ( 24 يناير 1862م - 11 أغسطس 1937م )
نُشر الكتاب للمرة الاولى عام 1924م .
حوى الكتاب على أربع روايات (وقد أوردت رأيي مُفصلًا لكل نوڤيلا على حدًا) ، تتحدث كلٌ منها عن نيويورك في زمن مختلف

• الفجر الكاذب -الأربعينات- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• العانس -الخمسينيات- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• الشرارة -الستينيات- ⭐️ ١/٢
• يوم رأس السنة -السبعينات- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ١/٢


هذه التجربة الأولى لي مع كتاباتها ، التي اتسمت بوصفها المحايد لمجتمع أثرياء نيويورك الأُرستقراطي الراقي ، فكيف لا و هي سليلة عائلة تنتمي لهم ؟!!!
الترجمة كانت سلسلة و أنيقة ، بقلم المبدعة بثينة الإبراهيم ❤️


⭐️⭐️⭐️ ١/٢ لــ خامس كتب 2023

[Carolien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edith Wharton brings New York of the 19th century to life in these four novellas. Each one is beautifully told.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the serene and halcyon days of the 1840s to the brittleness
of the 1870s, Edith Wharton weaves her magic as she reveals the
codes and customs that ruled society in each decade.
FALSE DAWN tells of Lewis who wants to make his father proud of
him and hopes to do that when he is entrusted with art purchases
as he makes his Grand Tour. There is a small scene before he
departs - his sister is hurrying to take provisions to a poor
family in the town, the Poes and Lewis speaks glowingly of
hearing Mr. Poe give a reading of some of his stories.
Mr. Raycie, though, is a bully and leaves Lewis no leaway for his
own painting choices but once on the continent Lewis falls in with
a radical group (Ruskin and Rossetti) and the Art he brings home
has dire consequences for the rest of his life. All finished with
a typical Wharton twist!!
THE OLD MAID was a celebrated Bette Davis tearjerker from 1939 but
this is the original, a slightly more gentle story of Aunt Charlotte,
the perennial old maid. She is a poor relation of the flighty Delia
and has reappeared after a year's recuperation down South which
has been a constant source of talk. She has left her girlish ways
and is now a tireless worker for the poor and destitute, even
starting up an orphanage where there is a lot of talk about a
little foundling girl who was brought in with a $100 pinned to her
dress. In the 1850s conventions are rigid but Charlotte and Delia
combine their love to give little Tina the kind of future she would
have had as her due, if her parentage had been legitimate.
THE SPARK - Clumsy, impatient Hayley Delane is regarded as a figure
of fun among his cronies but the young narrator feels there is
something deep down that sets him apart from his contemporaries.
It is with a shock that he realises that Hayley, far from being a
dullard, had run away from school to enlist in the Civil War and
a chance meeting with Walt Whitman enthuses young Hayley with just
"the spark" he needs for his moral rehabilitation.
NEW YEAR'S DAY is my very favourite. A chance remark about a
scandalous affair has a young man remembering back to an incident
in his youth when the Fifth Avenue Hotel caught fire - "it was
frequented by politicians and "Westerners", two classes of citizens
whom my mother....ranked with illiterates and criminals". With more
than a passing nod to Lily Bart, Lizzie Hazeldean is a noted New
York beauty clinging precariously to society's edges but soon to
be cut adrift when her affair with dandy Henry Prest becomes
common knowledge - all on account of the fire. Lizzie's triumph is
not without some heart wrenching - "she could not read books but
she could read hearts" says the young narrator who comes to admire
her very much.
Wharton reveals the 1870s as a time when, if a woman has no husband
the future is bleak indeed. The time was still in the future when
a woman could use her own ingenuity to start a small business such
as hat trimming etc or just to try to get on as Lily Bart tried.

[Celia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The four short novels by the author of The Age of Innocence are set in the New York of the 1840's, 1850's, 1860's and 1870's.

The first, False Dawn, describes a father-son relationship that falls apart. Paintings are involved.

The second, The Old Maid, and her best known, involves a woman's illegitimate child adopted by her best friend with devastating results.

The third, The Spark, deals with a man's moral rehabilitation.

And the fourth, New Year's Day (and my favorite), is an O.Henryesque tale of a married woman suspected of adultery.

I have read Age of Innocence and this book caries on in the tradition of describing eras and the rules and customs that describe society. I have a copy of this book bought in San Jose CA when I visited my friend there. I treasure the book, the trip and my friend.

5 stars

[Elena Druță · Rating 3 out of 5]

New Yorkul de altădată de Edith Wharton este un volum format din patru povestiri despre viața din înalta societate a New Yorkului din anii 1800, fiecare povestire axându-se pe alte personaje și pe alte probleme - scandaluri legate de viața amoroasă, de copii, de situația cu banii, de relațiile din familie. Mi-au plăcut toate povestirile, autoarea oferind o imagine amplă a societății, a sufletului uman și a problemelor actuale pentru acea perioadă. Cu toate acestea, pe alocuri simțeam că mintea-mi zboară în altă parte, pentru că narațiunea se axa pe fire narative secundare ce pentru mine nu erau de interes.

[Charlene Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

False Dawn- 4 stars

The Old Maid- 4 stars My favorite out of the entire collection.

The Spark- 2 stars This was my least favorite of the entire collection. This is more of a character driven story. But I really didn't understand why the narrator was fascinated with Hayley Delane.

New Year's Day- 4 stars

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

These four novellas, from 1924, are historical fiction, set in the 1840s, 50s, 60s and 70s. They are okay, interesting, but I didn't really find them gripping. It is also worth saying that if they had been set in the 20th century I would have a distinct knowledge of the difference between the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, but in the 1800s it is not so easy. Edith Wharton lived from 1862 to 1937.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Life has a way of overgrowing its achievements as well as its ruins." (p 228)

[Jane Gregg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love some January Edith Wharton, especially 4 novellas hitherto unknown to me. So dense. So delicious. So deft. The wondrous Wharton triumphs in long, short, and mid form it seems.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edith Wharton hailed from the social prominent family whose wealth and social standing that gave us the Term:” Keeping up with the Jones-es”. This was in the highest of high society New York where trends had not yet replaced traditions. In this book, Old New York are collected four of her novellas that address stress points between a social order that was above all else ordered, fixed in its tastes, moral outlook and inflexible in its expectations. Each story is associated with a decade. Suggesting that time is passing, but this social order barely notices.

The first, with an O’ Henry twist, by way of EW is False Dawn. Rich daddy wants art. Not for Arts sake, but because walls filled with the approved names is socially desirable. Well Daddy can afford what he wants, right?

Next is Old Maid. Considered the best known and most liked. Two sisters allow themselves to drift from being highly desirable marriageable women, to the pitiful status of Old Maids. The one sister is raising as an orphan, a girl who is secretly the child of the other. Over time the biological mother must deal with putting the emotional and practice needs of her unaware daughter in front of her desire for the motherly love reserved for her parenting sister. Much of this drama is deftly handled with the full value of its attending emotions. The success of the climax is dependent, over much, on the pre wedding night chat wherein the mother of the bride to be, has a few brief minutes in which to impart to the can only be virginal and unsuspecting daughter, what to expect in the marriage bed. The literal fact of this chat is something enormously foreign to a modern reader, even a modern, upper crust society New Yorker. In this, the modern reader is asked to remember that there is also the purely emotional aspect of this intimate moment between mother and daughter.
Moving to the decade labeled as the 1860’s, The Spark there is a bit of a problem with the dates. The events that so effected (Sparked) the personality of its male character, did take place during the American Civil War. The time period of this novella’s events had to have been sometime after 1869. The ending of this story is much in line with the kinds of reversals made famous by O’Henry but it could only have been in Edith Wharton’s Old New York.


The last Novella, is titled New Years. On the surface an ultimate in our list of stories centered on what Wharton called “subtle revolts against the heartlessness of social routine” is a tad forced and too dependent on the reads willingness to suspend disbelief. A woman is an adulterer, but can we or New York honestly pass judgement given aspects of that which can never be spoken?

Edith Wharton writes well. She can be viciously subtle in the application of much needed satire. She can change moods in succeeding sentences. That is, she has fine control of her art and tight focus on where she is leading her reader. I am not sure if I have exhausted my interest in this slice of New York, and only in this time, but I trust Ms. Wharton make of any additions to this shelf a great read.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

mi-a placut foarte tare scriitura lui edith wharton. este foarte atenta la detalii si foarte fina cunoscatoare a firii umane.
are aplomb si elocventa, un fel foarte particular de a scrie, fiind foarte sensibila. dar foarte lucida in acelasi timp.
cunoastereaa foarte bine a lumii din care facea parte o ajuta sa isi caracterizeze personajele foarte bine si astfel sa creeze caractere particulare.
cele 4 nuvele sunt fiecare o bijuterie in sine, care poarta un farmec al unei societati de mult apuse.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was browsing in the library and came across Old New York by Edith Wharton, a collection of four novellas. I've read Ethan Frome, which is very different from other Wharton works as it's set in a rural area in New England while most of the others are in New York society like this one.

Summary from back cover: "These tales are vintage Wharton, dealing boldly with such themes as infidelity, illegitimacy, jealousy, the class system, and the condition of women in society."

False Dawn: A young man is sent on a tour of Europe to collect art to bolster his family's reputation; when he returns his father disowns him for choosing poorly. However many years later it turns out to be a very valuable collection. I liked that the man's wife stood by him even through their years of poverty-I only wish his judgment could have been redeemed in his lifetime.

The Old Maid: This is also a Bette Davis movie; although I have not seen it, I enjoyed trying to picture her in this role. Possibly my favorite due to that. It's an especially heartbreaking story as a mother watches her daughter scorn her in favor of the adoptive mother, her cousin. I can't imagine having to watch your child everyday call someone else Mother and treat you as a poor spinster relative.

The Spark: This was my other favorite as the main character Hayley Delane is an interesting man. He ran away from school to enlist in the Civil War despite being underage and wealthy enough to buy his way out. Later he takes in his scandalous father-in-law as there is no one else to care for him. And it turns out that he is inspired by his meeting Walt Whitman during the war although he doesn't care for his poetry at all. I shared in the narrator's fascination with Delane and looked forward to finding out more about him as the story progressed.

New Year's Day: I really liked the twist in this one. A woman engages in an adulterous affair in order to scrounge up enough money to provide for her dying husband-everyone thought she was just a cheater but she didn't care because she kept her husband comfortable. She spends the rest of her life alone and comfortable in the knowledge that she did her best for her husband. It was a sweet love story although since the husband died in the beginning also tragic.

Overall: 4 out of 5. Actually all of these stories were to varying degrees depressing showing limitations placed on women and families by society. Despite that, they were enjoyable and readable. I was already planning on reading The Age of Innocence but now I am even more interested. The backcover also described the last story as O. Henryesque which makes me want to read some of his work now too.

I realize this wasn't so much a review as a description of the parts I liked but it is really good. I would recommend it as a nice bedtime reading or to someone who really likes Edith Wharton and has read her major works already.

[Chaitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a couple of months since I read these four novellas that comprise the book Old New York. Wharton is amazing when she is writing about the upper crust of New England Society, and she deals with four decades of New York Society in the four novellas here.

The False Dawn deals with a father and son relationship. The son is commissioned by the father to buy "real" art in Europe, and he makes a genuine effort to actually buy good art by unknown artists. The father is not pleased and ultimately cuts off his son from his will leaving him with only the paintings. The Spark deals with a decent but simple man with a horrid wife, and who becomes enamored with the ideas Walt Whitman. New Years Day is about a woman with a dying husband who has an extra marital affair with a rake. The best known story of the lot is The Old Maid which was made into a movie with the inimitable Bette Davis. The story deals with the old maid, really an unwed mother, who has to turn to her cousin to take care of her little girl. This makes her bitter and resentful, but still willing to do everything she can to protect her girl from stigma.

My favorite among the lot is also The Old Maid. There is something so compelling and poignant in the portrayal of Charlotte Lovell, the unwed mother and the old maid, that had the other stories beat. I also liked The False Dawn and New Years Day. The only turkey in the collection, for me, was The Spark, which I've forgotten already. I'm not sure it ever stuck in my mind, to be honest. In any case, it's a must read for Wharton fans, especially her The Age of Innocence or The House of Mirth fans, as this collection too deals with society, manners and conventions - false and hypocritical though they may be. Wharton has a keen insight to human foibles, and it comes through in these stories. Her prose is engaging as usual.

Worth checking out.

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

These four novellas lend an insight into the mores of the upper crust of New York society of the mid-19th century. I thought it was interesting how modern some of the situations and plot felt, even though some of the customs were obviously of another age. It seems some of the societal pressures of marriage and morality could still exist in modern New York society, especially that of the richer classes, which are always a bit more conservative.

I did enjoy some of the stories more than others. 'The Spark' was the weakest of the four, since it seemed to always be on the edge of saying something but never getting there. The other three felt more accessible. False Dawn, the first story, was so exquisitely sad and didn't go where I first expected it to, which was a nice surprise. The Old Maid was strongly written and set up the two main characters very well. I understand why Wharton used the younger narrator to frame the story of New Year's Day, but it felt much more like a contrivance. The first two stories of the book did not have a character narrating (although one pops up at the end of False Dawn he does not intrude at all before that), which seems to be the reason they were stronger. The narrator in New Year's Day was the troubling bit of the story. Wharton had to write him in with convolutions of the story, which served to lose the emotional kernel of the story in the mix.

Altogether, I enjoyed these novellas and the glimpses into old New York, and I am now interested in reading Wharton's longer works.