Edith Wharton:  Recommended Works

Bibliographies Send items for inclusion in MLA format to whartonqueries@gmail.com.
1999-present 1979-1998 1959 to 1978 Beginnings to 1958
Dissertations FILMOGRAPHY RECOMMENDED BIBLIOGRAPHY INDIVIDUAL WORKS

Annotations, where present, are the work of individual Wharton Society or Wharton-L members; recommendations have been compiled from responses to questions on Wharton-L.

Biographies and Biographical Materials

For readers new to Wharton:

Basic Wharton Fiction

  • The House of Mirth
  • The Age of Innocence
  • Ethan Frome
  • Summer (Note: Some members placed this book under this category ; others preferred to place it in "Next Level Fiction")
  • Discussion questions on Summer .
  • Collection of Ghost Tales
  • The Custom of the Country
  • Next Level Fiction

  • The Reef
  • Summer
  • The Mother's Recompense
  • Hudson River Bracketed
  • The Gods Arrive
  • Any collection of short stories and her autobiography, A Backward Glance
  • Secondary Sources

    Fiction about Wharton

    Lynn C. Miller's The Fool's Journey. "A thoroughly rewarding novel about an American lit. professor engaged in writing a study of Wharton, with many well-researched Wharton flashbacks and insightful parallels between academe and Old New York.A must-read for friends and scholars of
    Wharton." --Emily Orlando, Tennessee State University

    Carol de Chellis Hill, Henry James's Midnight Journey. "The novel takes place in fin-de-siecle Vienne and stars James, Wharton, Freud, and virtually every other major art figure of the time.  It includes Wharton's affair and writing of 'pornography.'  It was named one of Publisher's Weekly's best books of 1993." --Mary E. Papke, University of Tennessee