Project MUSE®: Edith Wharton Review - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Edith Wharton Review.daily12026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 34 (2018) through current issue
Latest Articles: Edith Wharton ReviewTWOProject MUSE®Edith Wharton Review2330-39802330-3964Latest articles in Edith Wharton Review. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Edith Wharton’s A Motor-Flight through France and the Aesthetics of Wonder
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974751
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Edith Wharton’s autobiography takes a somber swerve toward the end, as she recollects encountering her friend, Geoffrey Scott, ten days before his death. Wharton then emphasizes how important it is, when faced with life’s sorrows, to maintain a capacity for wonder: “yet there are always new countries to see, new books to read (and, I hope, to write), a thousand little daily wonders to marvel and rejoice in, and those magical moments when the mere discovery that ‘the woodspurge has a cup of three’ brings not despair but delight” (Backward Glance 379). In a letter to Mary Berenson a few years later (1936), Wharton reiterates the vivifying role of wonder in her life: “I wish I knew what people mean when they say they
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallEdith Wharton’s A Motor-Flight through France and the Aesthetics of Wonder2025-11-15text/htmlen-USEdith Wharton’s A Motor-Flight through France and the Aesthetics of Wonder2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®926832026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Edith Wharton’s The Glimpses of the Moon (1922): A Marginal Work?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974752
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Edith Wharton’s The Glimpses of the Moon (1922) is a novel set in Northern Italy and France, more specifically in Lake Como, Venice, Paris and its suburbs—all places well-known to Wharton. The novel’s main protagonists are Susy Branch and Nick Lansing, two young Americans with no money but societal connections. They strike an unusual agreement, a pretend marriage for a year in order to be hosted around Europe for their honeymoon by family friends; as noted in the novel, “People were always glad to lend their house to a newly-married couple” (26). Their union gives them access to a temporary social status and lifestyle that matches their social-climbing ambitions. Eventually, Susy and Nick’s agreement does not go
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallEdith Wharton’s The Glimpses of the Moon (1922): A Marginal Work?2025-11-15text/htmlen-USEdith Wharton’s The Glimpses of the Moon (1922): A Marginal Work?2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®845242026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15On (Working with) Edith Wharton’s Letters
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974753
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Edith Wharton unquestionably “belongs to the American Company of prolific and eloquent letter writers” (Lewis and Lewis 3), which makes her letters an equally rewarding and demanding source for scholars. Early edited collections such as The Letters of Edith Wharton (Scribner, 1988) and Henry James and Edith Wharton: Letters, 1900–1915 (Scribner, 1990) have crucially shaped the increasing scholarly interest in Edith Wharton the author, while later publications like My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann (Yale UP, 2012) and The Correspondence of Edith Wharton and Macmillan, 1901–1930 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) influenced the common understanding of Edith Wharton the private person and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallOn (Working with) Edith Wharton’s Letters2025-11-15text/htmlen-USOn (Working with) Edith Wharton’s Letters2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®722242026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Wharton’s Understanding of Tragedy: A Philosophical Reflection on The Age of Innocence and The Children
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974754
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Many candidates for the title of Great American Novel are stories that place their heroes somewhat outside the boundaries and bonds of society, where they are free, then, to fashion their own identities absent the influence of the culture of corruption they left behind—in much the same way that the United States, after its revolution, sought to fashion itself anew, unencumbered by the sheer weight of all things European. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn typifies this theme, suggesting that the moral development of its titular character is only possible by his separation from the society into which he was born. Moby Dick places its characters well off the shore of the United States, while The Grapes of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallWharton’s Understanding of Tragedy: A Philosophical Reflection on The Age of Innocence and The Children2025-11-15text/htmlen-USWharton’s Understanding of Tragedy: A Philosophical Reflection on The Age of Innocence and The Children2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®438312026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15“Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence” (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974755
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While this Arena Stage production of The Age of Innocence focused primarily on the same 1870s period that Wharton used for her 1920 novel of old New York, Hana S. Sharif ’s program note insisted on “the contemporary resonance” of the drama (5). The director praised Zacarías’s “searing and sensual new play” for transporting “the past into the present” (5). For context, it is worth noting that the idea of adapting The Age of Innocence for the stage is not “new.” In Wharton’s lifetime, a theatrical version penned by Margaret Ayer Barnes enjoyed a highly successful run of over two hundred performances in 1928–1929, providing Wharton with a hefty payday. Although “contemporary” in some respects, Sharif ’s project
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmall“Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence” (review)2025-11-15text/htmlen-US“Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence” (review)2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®182352026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Sleep Works: Experiments in Science and Literature, 1899–1929 by Sebastian P. Klinger (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974756
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During the opening decades of the twentieth century, German- and French-speaking physicians, scientists and modernist writers alike contributed to a robust discourse about a primary human activity—sleep—that was being reshaped fundamentally by modern life. They were concerned with figuring out the nature of sleep, with the physiology that facilitates sleep, with managing sleep, and with the writing of sleep. Significant inquiries in sleep science occurred in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Habsburg Empire within a tightly delineated historical period. The latter had begun in 1899 with Sigmund Freud’s conceptual division of sleep and dreams, and concluded in 1929 with Hans Berger’s introduction of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallSleep Works: Experiments in Science and Literature, 1899–1929 by Sebastian P. Klinger (review)2025-11-15text/htmlen-USSleep Works: Experiments in Science and Literature, 1899–1929 by Sebastian P. Klinger (review)2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®141942026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15The Memory of Architecture in Edith Wharton’s Travel Writing by Àgnes Zsófia Kovács (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974757
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Historic monuments were recast as national heritage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just as Edith Wharton began her forty-plus-year career as a writer. Modern inventions (steamships, railways, and eventually motorcars) and new ways of building (concrete, macadamized roads, and the T bolt) changed the built environment, especially in urban centers. Technological transformations, when combined with the ideological needs of nation-states in Europe, including the new Italian state (1871), led to public and private efforts to save noteworthy landmarks.Some restored old buildings to their former glory, while others believed evidence of time’s passage made old buildings more authentic. In this, Wharton
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallThe Memory of Architecture in Edith Wharton’s Travel Writing by Àgnes Zsófia Kovács (review)2025-11-15text/htmlen-USThe Memory of Architecture in Edith Wharton’s Travel Writing by Àgnes Zsófia Kovács (review)2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®186702026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974758
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In an era in which private space is increasingly put on public display, Edith Wharton’s first published book-length work, The Decoration of Houses (1897), coauthored with architect Ogden Codman Jr., is more relevant than ever. A foundational text in interior design and architectural aesthetics, Wharton and Codman pioneered the modern design manual and legitimized “house-decoration as a branch of architecture” (3). While critical studies of this text such as Pauline C. Metcalf ’s Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses (1988) have explored the backgrounds and collaborative process of the authors, this latest edition, edited by professor and Wharton scholar Emily J. Orlando, illuminates how The Decoration of Houses
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallThe Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr (review)2025-11-15text/htmlen-USThe Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr (review)2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®139402026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Edith Wharton Society Panels at the American Literature (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974759
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The Edith Wharton Society organized two panels at the 2025 American Literature Association conference in Boston: Wharton and Democracy, chaired by Emily Coit from the University of Chicago with a response from Arielle Zibrak from the University of Wyoming, and Wharton and Popular Culture, chaired by Emily J. Orlando from Fairfield University. Both panels fostered new ways of thinking about Edith Wharton within the context of our lives in 2025. During the democracy panel, compelling conversations took place that not only related to the politics during Wharton’s life but also linked to our current political climate in the United States. Similarly, the panel on popular culture considered Edith Wharton’s long-lasting
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallEdith Wharton Society Panels at the American Literature (review)2025-11-15text/htmlen-USEdith Wharton Society Panels at the American Literature (review)2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®188142026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Edith Wharton Society Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, January 2025 Program
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974760
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“Detailing Plants and Reading Ecological History in Edith Wharton’s Summer” Jennifer Haytock, State U of New York, Brockport“Invisible Desires, Uncanny Marriages” Melanie V. Dawson, William and Mary“Edith Wharton’s Politics of Invisibility” Cynthia J. Davis, U of South Carolina, Columbia“What Adaptations Make Visible: The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome on Broadway”Meredith Lynn Goldsmith, Ursinus
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallEdith Wharton Society Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, January 2025 Program2025-11-15text/htmlen-USEdith Wharton Society Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, January 2025 Program2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®19792026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15Editor’s Note
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974761
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The contents of this issue of the Edith Wharton Review make Wharton’s global interests and experiences amply evident calling for further critical interventions into the works discussed. Allyson Stack explores the concept of wonder with its aesthetic resonance in terms of Wharton’s responses to some of the great cathedrals of France, the cathedral of Amiens in particular. In “Edith Wharton’s A Motor-Flight through France and the Aesthetics of Wonder,” Stack draws on Philip Fisher’s understanding of Cartesian wonder that allows for “specialist knowledge” along with “emotion and sensation” to provide a deep analysis of Wharton’s aesthetic appreciations.Laëtitia Nebot-Deneuville’s article, “Edith Wharton’s The Glimpses
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-13T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/757/image/coversmallEditor’s Note2025-11-15text/htmlen-USEditor’s Note2025-11-152025TWOProject MUSE®50362026-05-13T00:00:00-05:002025-11-15