The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 21 April 2011
by Louis Auchincloss
Edith Wharton has long been one of America's treasured authors. Writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she was one of our greatest documentarians of life among the east coast upper-class, the class from which she sprung (along with other figures like Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt). Louis Auchincloss also sprung from the well-heeled cultural milieu of a later gilded New York age (from which such as Jackie Kennedy Onassis also hailed). He was in possession of some of Edith Wharton's own correspondence, and so could bring a uniquely intimate perspective to this brief biography. The book (first published in 1971) is short, and richly illustrated with photographs of Wharton's life. Overall, the text is a straightforward retelling of the key events of Wharton's life and was most likely intended as a memorial volume, an enjoyable introduction to the author of such classics as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. But Auchincloss knows well whereof he speaks, and so expresses a convincing understanding of what drove Wharton and the impact that certain events, such as her divorce or her emigration to France, would have on her personality, after having been raised in a strictly structured American culture that was then in the process of vanishing. Wharton's stories and novels of that world prefigure the sprawling nostalgia of Marcel Proust (who it is said she also admired). But, while Auchincloss clearly relates to Wharton, he is canny enough to be critical about her work. He admires her successes, but is able to note where her writing began to diverge from the world she was trying to depict. And, with access to some of her letters, he is able to note the little flaws in her character, her mixed desire and disdain of the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, her sometimes self-absorbed relations with her friends. So, while brief, this volume on Wharton's life also has a fresh perspective and is often insightful.
Also by Auchincloss: [Fellow Passengers]
See Also: [The House of Mirth and Summer by Edith Wharton]