Book summary

Wharton's sharp-eyed, subtle, and penetrating stories portray lives lived under the stultifying weight of upper-class conventions.

Media reviews

"Wharton attempted, and succeeded in, a dazzling variety of styles, from the fantastic to the realistic, from the satiric to the sentimental. Here are antiquarian themes--ghosts, fables, historical fantasies, and tales of crazed connoisseurs in love with the past. But here are also a number of incisive dissections of contemporary American and European customs. Wharton brought a new acuity to the debate between manners and morals. And she knew how to shape a story."