< b> A New York Review Books Original< /b> < br> < br> It was in New York City that Edith Wharton& #8217; s literary and cultural sensibility was formed. The regular rows of somber brownstones, the inexorable codes of behavior, the solid layers of bullion on which the elegant social structure stood, all played a crucial part in the awakening of Edith Wharton& #8217; s mind. Though she moved in 1911 to France, where she spent the rest of her life, New York continued to figure for Wharton& #160; as a fixed point of reference& #8211; the North Star on the firmament of her imagination& #8211; even as, over the years, her views of the city changed. In her early work the city was stultifying and confining, rigid and materialistic. Later, it took on a certain nobility as a place supported and dignified by its own curious codes of honor. This original collection, the first to focus on Wharton& #8217; s relation to her native New York, shows the arc of Wharton& #8217; s own response to the city that shaped her view of the world.< br> < br> A partial list of the stories to be included: < br> < br> < i> The Rembrandt< /i> < br> < i> The Dilettante< /i> < br> < i> The Other Two< /i> < br> < i> His Father& #8217; s Son< /i> < br> < i> Roman Fever< /i> < br> < i> The Long Run< /i> < br> < i> Autres Temps& #8230; < /i> < br> < i> After Holbein< /i>

A New York Review Books Original

It was in New York City that Edith Wharton's literary and cultural sensibility was formed. The regular rows of somber brownstones, the inexorable codes of behavior, the solid layers of bullion on which the elegant social structure stood, all played a crucial part in the awakening of Edith Wharton's mind. Though she moved in 1911 to France, where she spent the rest of her life, New York continued to figure for Wharton as a fixed point of reference-the North Star on the firmament of her imagination-even as, over the years, her views of the city changed. In her early work the city was stultifying and confining, rigid and materialistic. Later, it took on a certain nobility as a place supported and dignified by its own curious codes of honor. This original collection, the first to focus on Wharton's relation to her native New York, shows the arc of Wharton's own response to the city that shaped her view of the world.

A partial list of the stories to be included:

The Rembrandt

The Dilettante

The Other Two

His Father's Son

Roman Fever

The Long Run

Autres Temps...

After Holbein

A New York Review Books Original

Edith Wharton wrote about New York as only a native can. Her Manhattan is a city of well-appointed drawing rooms, hansoms and broughams, all-night cotillions, and resplendent Fifth Avenue flats. Bishops' nieces mingle with bachelor industrialists; respectable wives turn into excellent mistresses. All are governed by a code of behavior as rigid as it is precarious. What fascinates Wharton are the points of weakness in the structure of Old New York: the artists and writers at its fringes, the free-love advocates testing its limits, widows and divorcees struggling to hold their own.

The New York Stories of Edith Wharton gathers twenty stories of the city, written over the course of Wharton's career. From her first published story, Mrs. Manstey's View, to one of her last and most celebrated, Roman Fever, this new collection charts the growth of an American master and enriches our understanding of the central themes of her work, among them the meaning of marriage, the struggle for artistic integrity, the bonds between parent and child, and the plight of the aged.

Illuminated by Roxana Robinson's Introduction, these stories showcase Wharton's astonishing insight into the turbulent inner lives of the men and women caught up in a rapidly changing society.