This year's MLA meeting (27-30 December) marks the 20th anniversary of the Edith Wharton Society.

From the BERKSHIRE HERALD, December 23, 2003:

Dr. Hale, the town’s one doctor, would come to people’s houses day or night, she said. He drove a horse and wagon, and later a car, but always walked to nearer calls. He had a raccoon coat and galoshes that he always wore unbuckled. In “Ethan Frome,” Edith Wharton mentions a young doctor, Ed Hale, who married the judge’s daughter, Annie Walker — as the real Dr. Hale had, Peters said.
http://www.iberkshires.com/story.php?story_id=13071

From the WALL STREET JOURNAL:
"RHINEBECK, N.Y. (Oct. 8, 2003) -- It was the original McMansion, a home so grand that many believe it inspired the phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses." Now it's for sale, and it may well be torn down.

So imposing was Wyndclyffe, built in 1853 by Edith Wharton's aunt, Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, that it was the beginning of a craze for building ever-more-elaborate houses along the Hudson River. The Jones house had a four-story tower, intricate brickwork, 24 rooms, 80 acres of lawn and woodland and sweeping river views. Nearby estate owners soon were adding turrets, towers and extra wings." More at
http://homes.wsj.com/columnists/preservation/20031008-silverman.html
Submitted by Julie Olin-Ammentorp

"Summer, the Richard Rodgers Development Award-winning musical based on the steamy Edith Wharton novel, gets a Manhattan reading under the direction of Leonard Foglia Dec. 11." From the Playbill site. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/83208.html

The new book A IS FOR ABIGAIL, "an almanac of amazing American
women" by Lynne Cheney (Simon & Schuster 2003) features Edith Wharton on the "W" page.

Submitted by Julie Olin-Ammentorp

Garland Farm, Home of Beatrix Farrand

Beatrix Farrand was a noted landscape gardener and also the niece of Edith Wharton. Here's a site with information about the farm along with pictures of the gardens.http://members.aol.com/SaveGarlandFarm . --Submitted by Julie Olin-Ammentorp

Photo of the Mary Mason Jones House.
1890 limestone Chateau style mansion of Edith
Wharton's aunt pictured--then and the site now--at the NE
corner of 57th and 5th in New York.
http://www.nysocialdiary.com/archive/socialdiary8.18.03.html
Submitted by Sandra Foster

Edith Wharton is mentioned in a review of Patricia Beard's "After The Ball", the retelling of a 1905 financial scandal of a New York Socialite. It "suggests how Edith Wharton might have sounded had she been hugely interested in the insurance business."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/books/04MASL.html

Sandra Foster
Brookhaven, NY

Garrison Keillor's short essay on Wharton is part of his Writer's Almanac. Scroll down to Wharton's birthday (January 24) to see the entry. http://www.writersalmanac.org/docs/03_01_20.htm

Candace Bushnell cites Edith Wharton as an inspiration in this article, and a New York Times review of one of her books suggests that she is influenced by The House of Mirth. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~28~1531786,00.html

Poor Bill Clinton. He's trying to deal with Osama bin Laden and he's got a bunch of angry women on his case, and a sex-obsessed special prosecutor. He's like Ethan Frome, a guy who just wants to take a joy ride on a sled, and ends up getting stuck for life in a cramped cabin with the wife he betrayed and his now irritating and ubiquitous former dalliance

From Maureen Dowd's review of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/books/review/29DOWDOT.html

"Bioperversity," by Lorrie Moore. The New Yorker ( May 19th, 2003) p. 88-89.

In Lorrie Moore's review of Margaret Atwood's novel, "Oryx and Crake," Moore notes that Atwood [is] "rare among feminist writers in apparently liking her men--if not their institutions--better than her women. (Not since Edith Wharton has a female writer filled her oeuvre with so many unpleasant female characters.)

note: the quotation appears on p. 89
Submitted by Deborah Hecht, hechtd@tourolaw.edu

Pencraig Cottage (now called Quail Tree House), Edith Wharton's early home in Newport, will be open for a decorator show house from May 17-June 15.

"Dance Fever," by Kyle York Spencer
New York Magazine, February 24, 2003

The Contents page states:

"Four decades ago, the Quadrille Ball--awash in white gloves, hoop skirts, and eighteenth-century etiquette--was a place where the offspring of the well-to-do and well-connected met their mates. The new economy has made strange bedfellows: Now young professionals of every background from Park Avenue to Paramus don tiaras and tails (not to mention submit to a ten-week finishing school) to get a taste of the golden age of high society, if only for a night."

in the body of the article, Spencer writes about The Quadrille Ball:

"Once a hyper-exclusive event for the offspring of Gotham's well-to-do--including Rothschilds and Gimbels--the Quadrille is now a place where old money, new money, and not-all-that-much money merge...If this is Edith Wharton territory fast-forwarded 80 years, Lily Bart would have met a very different fate. In fact, she might have been recruited because the children of the true elite have gone clubbing" (p.42).

--Submitted by Deborah Hecht, hechtd@tourolaw.edu

An article on Lenox, Massachusetts in the New York Times includes a picture and description of The Mount, Wharton's house in the Berkshires. (free registration required to view the article)

"Why Is Gangs of New York Nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar? "(Slate) [Jay] Cocks, who was nominated once before, for his adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, says the original screenplay nod is more satisfying. "As wonderful as the nomination was for Age of Innocence, it basically belonged to Mrs. Wharton."

Quotations by and about Edith Wharton

This new page is a space for sharing favorite or significant quotations from Wharton's works, other authors' perspectives on Edith Wharton, or "sightings" of Edith Wharton in the news. If you would like to add a quotation or "sighting" to this page, please use the form at http://www.edithwhartonsociety/quotationform.htm.

Thanks for contributing.

I was reading manuscripts, and I took on manuscripts, without becoming the editor of the author. But the first real contact I had--and it had nothing to do with any real editorial job--was with Edith Wharton. It must have been shortly before she died. I was introduced to her, I think by Brownell, because he said, "Here, you two poets ought to get together." She had published several books of poems. She was most kind. Bristling in very stiff attire, she reminded me of a wasp--and a highly irritable one--but, as I said, she was very kind. --John Hall Wheelock, "From John Hall Wheelock's Oral Memoir" (DLB 2001, p. 223). [Donna Campbell]

Quotations from Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton on James Joyce's Ulysses

Here are some quotation sites that feature Edith Wharton's words:

Bartleby.com: Edith Wharton on the economic crash of 1929

A list of quotations from brainyquotes.com (commercial site with pop-up ads)

Achievement-oriented quotations from Cyber-nation

Edith Wharton in the News

"A House of Worth" Article on the restoration of The Mount (includes pictures).

"Historic Sites Targeted for Preservation." The Mount to be featured on HGTV. 10/12/02 (Note: This site has been set up so that you can't use the "back" button to return to this page.)

"Classic Books could be up for grabs in Hollywood." The Eldred-Ashcroft copyright case and its effects. 10/12/02