Monday, December 11, 2006

Edith Wharton and Newport

From the New York Times:


Mr. Fleming, an urban planner based in Cambridge, Mass., who has written six books on historic preservation, has a proselytizing zeal on the subject of America's great mansions, and a consuming obsession with the welfare of his own. Hoping to make it a comfortable gathering place for his children in the wake of his recent divorce, he set about restoring it to its one-time glory. The project took seven years, and was finally completed late last month.

Luckily, he had a guide in this undertaking: "The Decoration of Houses," the influential handbook that Codman published with his client and friend Edith Wharton in 1897. Codman and Wharton, who often bickered, were as one in their disdain for the pompous Newport "cottages" built by Gilded Age robber barons, and for the "dubious eclecticism" of High Victorian style. They advocated a return to "suitability, simplicity and proportion," ideals in keeping with Mr. Fleming's stringent classical tastes, and very much in evidence in Codman's design for Bellevue House.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Edith Wharton Dinner at MLA 2006

The Edith Wharton Society is sponsoring a dinner event at the 2006 MLA Convention in Philadelphia. The dinner will be at 7 p.m. on December 28, 2006, at

Ristorante La Buca
711 Locust Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 928-0556

The restaurant is about 8 blocks from the Marriott.

Please send your check in US funds for $35 for members and $45 for non-members per person and the reservation form by

December 10, 2006

to

Carole Shaffer-Koros
VE 114A
1000 Morris Avenue
Kean University
Union, NJ 07083

If you have mislaid the sign-up form from the recent _Edith Wharton Review_, a printable form suitable for sending with your check is available here: http://www.edithwhartonsociety.org/whartondinner2006.htm