Edith Wharton until recently has not received the interest and praise she deserved as one of the finest American authors -- was it because she was wealthy and female? Because people thought she was simply a protege of Henry James? Or because her books rarely had happy endings? Fortunately, a new generation is reappraising her work and finding much of value in it, from her critique of early 20th century American society and subtle assessment of man-woman relationships to her wonderfully textured and evocative style. RWB Lewis, who must be the foremost Wharton scholar today, brings Wharton to life in this book -- her tremendous intelligence, the terrific emotional hardships she endured, her great capacity for friendships and amazing zest for life. Wharton got started late as an author, not publishing her first book until nearly 40 -- because she had to overcome a tremendous hurdle -- being born into a society where women writers simply did not exist. Everything she accomplished thus was purely out of her own drive to communicate and create. If you haven't read much Wharton, I recommend also The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, The House of Mirth, and any short stories you can lay your hands on.

I had to read this for a college class about 10 years ago and was reluctant at first. It turned out to be a very interesting, informative book. It's quite large, but enjoyable - the pictures were especially fascinating, especially of Edith's various homes throughout her lifetime.

Along with her good friend Henry James, Edith Wharton was an expert at studying the stiff social fabric of New York in the 1800's. In this collection of some of her best work, the reader is invited into the lives of characters who struggle against the confines of society, for love and/or their own sanity. The House of Mirth is one of the best novels I've ever read, with the thoroughly captivating character of Lily Bart taking center stage. Wharton proved that she could see love and all of its tribulations through the eyes of a man when she wrote The Age of Innocence. No matter what she wrote, she did so with unerring detail and an almost uncanny knack for "the right phrase" for every situation. This collection is an interesting study not only of "old New York" but of characters who stay with you long after the last sentence is savored.

Who better to address the empowerment of women of color than women of color? Gutierrez, a Latina and Lewis, a Black woman of the African diaspora, have taken on this auspicious task by developing a model for social work practice. They present the historical, cultural, political and socioeconomic factors which have contributed to the problems and struggles faced by women of color. By use of example, some of them anecdotal, they relate the methods by which women of color can be empowered by drawing upon the strengths of their ancestors, raising their consciousness, building confidence, connecting with others and working in concert with nature, tradition and spirit. We are told that although racism, sexism and discrimination have contributed to the poverty of these women, they are a hopeful rather than a hopeless people who can be empowered when the practioner has used the methods outlined in this book. This book should be in the hands of every practitioner who works with women of color.

This book contains about 400 of Wharton's letters, out of about 4,000 extant. It is a careful selection, including "major" letters that are often quoted, and for the first time (other than in a small university publication), a substantial portion of her correspondence with Morton Fullerton, with whom she had an affair while in her mid-40s. That particular correspondence did not surface until the 1980s, and added an entirely new perspective on Wharton's life and work. Unfortunately, nearly all of her correspondence with two of her greatest friends, Henry James and Walter Berry, did not survive, and the absence is felt. I applaud the editors (one of whom wrote a Pulitzer prize winning bio of Wharton) for a selection that is very readable and never trite or repetitive (a big problem when dealing with letters in their entirety). Reading the letters after having read the bio, I found they added to my understanding of Wharton as a person and a writer.

This sentimental favorite children's book has the moral values of E. Nesbitt, who was a famous liberal activist in England. She creates a household utopian vision of a world where people are naturally good and where parents raise their children to be helpful and honest and brave.

This provides the background charm for a really lovely tale about a family in distress who sticks together bravely and provides a shining example to all around them, while being aided by equally high-minded and kind folks around them.

A knock on the door at the idyllic middle class town home of the children ends with a tragedy that they can scarcely understand. But Mother is brave and despite rumors of terrible things, they make their way to a more modest home in the country, next to a railway line. The children become friends with the trains and the regular commuters who wave at them. Their fascination with the train results in a heroic rescue. Meanwhile, their situation is sometimes difficult, and they develop some remarkable strategies for getting aid. There is a happy ending.

The morals taught to the children are particularly British (helpful, kind, brave) but certainly apply to us as well. The goodness that the children spread is really a lovely message and contributes to the charm and longevity of this great favorite. Good for reading aloud.

It is a story about three children who change a little town in England. The book is very adventurous in every chapter.It is a very well writen book.

The Railway Children is a wonderful book. When the book begins, the three children, Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis are living a lovely, secure life at Edgecomb Villa. Their father returns home after being away on business, two unknown men come to visit him in the evening after supper, and he simply disappears. Neither the reader nor the children know what has happened to him until Bobbie makes a chance discovery and learns the horrible truth.

In the intervening time, their mother, a capable and charming woman, takes her children to live in the country near a railway station, because they must "play at being poor for a while." The children handle their new situation with grace and wit, spending hours hanging about the railway station and generally keeping themselves busy, and in the process becoming fast friends with the porter, Perks, and the station master. They also become acquainted with their own old gentleman who lends a hand to help them time and again.

Bobbie is the oldest and sweetest of the children, with a longing to be truly good. Peter is the boy, who is madly in love with trains, stubbornly refuses to pushed around, and exhibits an extraordinary courage in the rescue of a baby and a young man in a train tunnel. Phyllis is the youngest, a funny, clumsy child with good intentions that often seem to go awry.

I read this book to my four year daughter. She loved it. As the adult, I enjoyed reading it. And, you'll be happy to know, it all comes out right in the end.

Prior to reading The House of Mirth, I had read both The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome. The House of Mirth deals with moneyed New York families, as does The Age of Innocence, but The House of Mirth has a more serious tone and a more tragic storyline, in that the main character is a woman who is a victim of her times. Lily Bart lives in an era when to be poor is the worst punishment of New York society. The idea of having to work for a living is untenable. Her goal in life is to marry well, but she struggles with the idea of abandoning her goals for true happiness just to marry well. The story deals with her misadventures in society, and the sometimes painful price her relatives and friends extract from her in exchange for financial support. This is a very enjoyable, although sad, novel, and I recommend it particularly to those who have already read some Edith Wharton and wish to round out their selection of writing.

High school students are often assigned Ethan Frome, and the Age of Innocence gained many readers because of the movie, but this is the Edith Wharton book that everyone should read. In many ways, this is similar to a Jane Austen book in which a member of the upper echelon of society has money problems and needs to marry well in order to stay at the same level of society. Forces and other people are contriving against her, but there seems to be at least one man who would be a good match for reasons of love. The first twist here is that the good match is not financially well off and therefore won't be able to support the heroine as she wants to be supported.

Lily Bart was orphaned many years ago, and her family had been financially ruined before that. However, she is accustomed to beautiful things and wants to continue to live at the top level of society. Unfortunately, her heart and soul long for more than these creature comforts. She yearns for excitement, intellectual and emotional honesty and probably true love, although she is confused about that. As she has gotten towards her late 20s, her prospects are dwindling and the only person who has the resources to support her and is already a part of polite society is Percy Gryce, a singularly boring man.

Lily rebels against Gryce just as she is about to marry him when she has a couple of heartfelt conversations with Lawrence Selden, a person she decides she might love, but who makes clear that he is not rich enough to support her as well as she should be supported.

Her choices other than Gryce are slim. There is Simon Rosedale, who is portrayed as an upwardly mobile person and therefore undesirable. He is also Jewish, which Wharton never overtly says is a problem with him for Lily, but probably figures into Lily's calculus (Wharton mainly talks about his Jewishness in the context of saying that Rosedale is more patient and able to face disappointment than others in his position because of what his people have dealt with over the centuries).

I have to admit that, unlike Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, it took me a while to get into this book. Perhaps, I picked up this book to read a story of Old New York and manners and was not ready for such an intense character study. But once I got to page 100, the last 250 pages went by in a flash. It is beautiful and eminently interesting. You will be interested in every twist in the story.

A couple of words of caution. If you buy this edition with the Anna Quindlen introduction, DON'T READ THE INTRODUCTION FIRST. It gives away too much in the first page--when I stopped reading it until after I finished--and the rest of the introduction gives away the rest of the plot. Finally, as with Jane Austen books, the actions of the male characters are often either inscrutable or irrational. It may be that men actually acted like this in the early 20th Century (or 19th for Austen). But I think it more likely that Wharton is misconstruing the male characters in ways that male authors almost always do with female characters. But this is a minor flaw, especially since Lily is so central to this book.

I stumbled upon a review of the recent film of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH in the TLS and, in order to have the novel firmly fixed in my mind (that is, before the lush, seductive images of film forever eradicated Wharton's novel from me) I dragged my copy off the shelf for a re-read. It had been 16 years since I last read of Lily Bart and her life, and I didn't realize how much I had missed her. For me, this is one of the great reading experiences, one of a handful that make reading a book the deeply moving and human exchange that it is. Despite the distance of wealth, property, time and manners, Wharton manages to make Lily's world and life palpable to anyone who will listen. The clash of money, morals, personality and circumstance is infinitely developed and played out in front of a never fading natural world. Once again, I was deeply moved by Lily Bart and at the end, felt I had lost someone myself.

Edith Wharton revisits and scrutinizes the New York high society she grew up in in this novel of love, social expectations, and class boundaries. Newland Archer-the central figure in the novel- is torn between a woman who represents tradition (and never questions the social order) and the woman he loves, who challenges the limits of society's tolerance, and seems oblivious in doing so. Throughout the novel, Archer is beseiged by thoughts of following his heart, but is drawn by propiety to never break with tradition. One is reminded of "The House of Mirth", another great work by Wharton, in which the central character's social blunder in the first chapter of the novel results in an irreparable decline into the lower classes.

Not only does Wharton enlighten the reader on the social codes of conduct during "The Age of Innocence", but she also fills the novel with the dress codes, dining codes, and proper codes of etiquette which were so important in the daily lives of the members of New York's high society. This stunning attention to detail really takes the reader to a different time and place, and it's a fascinating journey.

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence takes the reader into the fantastic world of New York in the late 1800s. Wharton shows an adept handling of her figurative language as she tells of the elite society in that great city. But more importantly, she draws the reader into the burning love triangle between Newland Archer, his fiancee, May Welland and her cousin, Countess Olenska. These characters each display a certain piece of society; with beautiful, innocent May the ideal society-girl, following all the conventions she had been moulded to follow; with Countess Olenska, the foreign, freedom loving, and sensuous member of one of the highest-ranking families of New York, who broke all the rules and never noticed they had been broken; with Newland Archer, the man who had been raised under the strict hand of society, yet longed to break free, torn between his fiancee and the woman he loved. This novel seduces the reader with its tale of betrayal and forbidden love, and astounds them with the outright hypocrisy that this old New York society displays. If you are someone who loves literary structure, hidden symbolism, and outstanding use of figurative language, this is a must-read novel.

You ever look through old pictures and see an old love? You wonder, just for a moment, whether it was the right thing to let that person go, but then you put the picture away and carry on with the rest of your life. The person you once loved so much lives only in your heart.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is about a man who has to "let go," and I've never read any novel that so sensitively portrays the pain, regret, and also, acceptance, of willingly giving up on love and passion. Newland Archer is a perfectly respectable "gentleman" of Old New York, and is engaged to May Welland, who's pretty, proper, nice, all the things a young lady is expected to be. However, it is clear from the get-go that they are not soulmates, that passion is lacking. Newland becomes intrigued by May's cousin, the "blacksheep" Ellen Olenska who has escaped a bad marriage and is looked upon by Society with fascination, disapproval, and distrust. Inevitably, heartbreak rse

Edith Wharton masterfully constructs New York Society, and also wisely chooses not to stereotype them all as shallow snobs. Ellen's grandmother, the formidable Mrs. Mingott, proves to be more understanding, humane, and kind to Ellen that the younger generation of the Mingott clan. But eventually, the whispers and gossip of Society catch up to Newland and Ellen.

Wharton also chooses not to tip her hand completely to Newland and Ellen. May is conventional and turns out to be quite a schemer, but Wharton makes it clear that she is just trying to preserve what she knows to be a passionless marriage. Society gives her no other choice than to be the Scheming Wife. Her secret heartbreak is hinted in the last chapter, after her death. One wonders whether May herself secretly longed for passion and excitement.

Overall, a wise, funny, devastatingly insightful and finally heartbreaking book. The last chapter is especially moving, as it shows the lingering pain and anguish Newland, Ellen and May suffered even after the "affair" was over.

Ideally, a biography is meant to give the reader a true feeling of what the subject was really like. For Willa Cather, there is perhaps no biography that does this better than the account of her life by Edith Lewis, who knew, and lived with, Willa Cather for well over 40 years.

At 197 pages (in the original edition) this book is short by biography standards; yet, reading it, I came away with a greater feeling of what Willa Cather was like than in all of the other biographies on her that I have read.

We get great personal details in such passages as: "I think Willa Cather never got so much happiness from the writing of any book as from the Archbishop; and although Shadows on the Rock is of course altogether different in conception, in treatment, and in artistic purpose, it may have been in part a reluctance to leave that world of Catholic feeling and tradition in which she had lived so happily for so long that led her to embark on this new novel." (Pg. 155)

Or, "...Willa Cather had a great distaste for luxury hotels...She was extremely gloomy and discontented, even resentful, the first day or two [at a particular luxury hotel], as if she had been cheated out of all the things she had come back to Aix-les-Bains to find. It was not until we removed to the plain, old-fashioned Grand Hotel down in the town...that she recovered her happy spirits." (pg. 159-160) (Indeed, Cather loved her extremely austere, pastoral summer cottage at Grand Manan, Canada; which was purposefully rustic and simple, but where she spent a great deal of time.)

Or, "When her [Cather's] brother Roscoe's twin daughters were babies, and she went out to Wyoming to visit him, she never tired of playing with them. She played with children, not as if she were a grown person, but as children play--with the same spirit of experiment, of adventurousness and unreflecitng enjoyment." (pg. 169)

Or, "She was a little tired that morning [of her death]; full of winning courtely to those around her; fearless, serene--with the childlike simplicity which had always accompanied her greatness; giving and recieiving happiness." (pg. 197)

This biography is recently back in print (I had to scour and search to get my edition), which begs the question: how could such a fine biography--written by Cather's life-long friend and house-mate--written on perhaps America's finest writer, have gone out of print in the first place?