I've only read three of the stories in this collection, so I'll just give my reviews on those:

Madame de Treymes -- a novella about Americans in Paris; it deals with divorce and conventions in France. It is short enough to work together in one piece, unlike the earlier novels. Apart from The Age of Innocence, I think Wharton is best in shorter forms.

Ethan Frome - I first read this one forty years ago in High School, but didn't remember much of it. It is very different from anything else I have read so far by Wharton: it deals with very poor people, rather than the rich and famous, concentrates on three isolated characters rather than "society", and has a much simpler and direct kind of emotional conflict. I assume that the reason my high school chose this rather untypical novella as the one Wharton to read is because the conflict is more "existential" than "social", and requires less imagination to understand or sympathize with the characters.

Summer - This is another novella in the world and style of Ethan Frome. I found these two novellas to be much less realistic than her other works -- perhaps paradoxically, because the characters are obviously meant to be "real" as opposed to the artificial characters in the "society" books. To me, though, they seemed less based on real people and events, and more like people out of novels. I think they are basically just a negative reflection of the other characters -- the kind of people that a Lily Bart in a fit of self-loathing would imagine as being "authentic". Where the characters in the other works smother their emotions in a web of over-analysis and calculation, these characters are largely puppets of unanalyzed emotions; where the others suffer from their own choices among imaginary options, these seem to have no real choices; where the others are defined by an artificial "society", these seem to exist almost in isolation from any society at all; and so forth. The two subjects of Wharton's writing seem to me to be at opposite ends of the social spectrum, with no links or intermediate strata -- either "high society" or incredibly exaggerated poverty and isolation.

so i finished the first novella, madame de treymes. not bad but maybe a bit over my head. i'll definitely need to invest in the cliffs notes for this book but wharton is worth it.

I enjoyed her autobiographical essays at the end of this edition, Summer, Madame De Treymes, and Ethan Frome. Each work comes from a different period of time in her life, so readers can see how her style changed and improved. The stories are insights into the past, especially Summer. I was amazed at the way she wrote a teenage girl - all the arrogance and innocence. Definitely not what I would describe as a romantic, life hits Edith's characters hard and often, but not outlandishly. I hope to return to this author in the future.

I got the compilation specifically to read Ethan Frome and then also read Madame de Treymes. I have not read the other selections in the compilation. I am consistently in awe of Wharton's mastery of characterization. Her books always leave me feeling a bit uncomfortable in large part because I seemingly understand and care for the characters so much. I like her work, very much but am not passionate about it. Definitely would recommend but I am personally not likely to re-read her works. I would love to read her works as part of a lit class, I imagine the discussions would be lively and deep.

Madame De Treymes - finished - 01/03/15

Ethan Frome - finished 01/10/16
[good lord, is there a less likable character in american fiction than zenobia frome?]

Summer - finished 03/03/17

Old New York - finished 10/09/18

The Mother's Recompense - finished 05/31/19

A Backward Glance - finished 04/19/20

Life and I - finished 1/1/21

A great collection of Wharton's shorter novels (plus one memoir). Everything in here is excellent; you get 1,000 pages of top-quality Edith Wharton. And the biographical Chronology at the end of this Library of America edition gives a remarkable picture of her life even in the notes' almost telegraphic form.

I took this book out from the library for one reason; Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton wrote several pieces of literature, and Ethan Frome is one of them.

Ethan Frome is the story of our narrator finding the history of our titular character. Frome has a tragic past. The initial prologue beckons us into the first chapter, where we meet a younger Ethan Frome. Frome is unhappily married and considers running off with his wife's cousin, Mattie. Frome's wife, Zeena, knows all this and isn't happy about it. Ethan and Mattie are in love with each other, but society would keep them apart. Tragedy eventually strikes, and we find ourselves back where we began.

Ethan Frome is well-written. The characters are fleshed out, and we understand their motivations. Wharton added some "local color" to the dialogue, allowing for the accents to be understood. I had the option of reading this story in High School, but I chose to read Moby-Dick instead. I don't know if I made the correct choice, but Ethan Frome is unquestionably shorter.

I only read Summer from this volume (I've read Ethan Frome in the past). While I wasn't passionate about it like I am The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, Wharton's attention to detail and complex characters never fail to garner my admiration.

I just completed reading Edith Wharton's novella, "Ethan Frome" in a two week group read and discussion in the "Readers Review" group on Goodreads. Personally, this is not one of my favorite Wharton works. It is important though, and it makes you think about the choices that we make in our lives and the potential consequences associated with them. This is a grim and wintry story, and one that at times can be extraordinarily painful to read; which is probably precisely what Edith Wharton intended when she wrote it.

I will continue to add to this review as I read the other novellas and stories in this collection of Wharton's works.

I've recently fallen into a Wharton phase, inspired in part by an upcoming paper I'll be delivering. As background I'm reading through a lot of Wharton, and enjoying it immensely. "Madame de Treymes" is delightful; the layered ironies of an American author writing about Americans at the hands of Parisian society (or is it the other way around?) is delightful, as is the prose and the tale. One could learn international détente from this work.

Not going to rate this because there were so many different stories in it and I'm not sure how I feel on all of them. I didn't particularly like Summer, partly because (what I felt to be) the author's horror at abortion hit a particular sore spot so soon after Roe v Wade being overturned - you could probably argue there was some nuance there, but I was feeling sensitive and couldn't bring myself to give it the benefit of the doubt, so that wasn't a particularly pleasant reading experience. I also felt that Wharton's autobiography wasn't all it could've been, just because she seems to like talking about all her friends more than herself. Which is...fine, but not what I'm looking for in an autobiography, which I feel needs to involve a certain amount of egotism and willingness to bare your life. I honestly came away from it feeling I knew more about Henry James than I did Edith Wharton. Some of her anecdotes were interesting, but the whole thing was kind of tiring because it felt like one very long dinner conversation, story after story about people she knows and I don't.
Anyway, I liked the rest of the collection reasonably enough. This was a lot to read by one author in a go, though, and I'm not particularly fanatical about Wharton, so I was feeling slightly worn out by the end.

A decent book physically speaking, but as far as the writing itself goes, just not my cup of tea. I prefer Atherton when it comes to these sorts of subjects.