Old New York by edith wharton

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

am tras de ea 2 luni. mi s-a parut simpatica prima povestire, chiar daca a fost foarte previzibila, insa mai departe m-am plictisit teribil, e peste puterile mele sa mai citesc ultimele 90 pagini. Poate m-am obisnuit prea mult cu stilul alert al literaturii contemporane. Nu e rea. Just not my type.

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lesbevil

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors, The Age of Innocence remains one of my favorite novels.No one writes about rich people shenanigans with humanity the way that she does. This book contains 4 novellas set within different decades. In these novellas, you see how each character(s) deals with their passions, losses and disappointments within the confides and expectations of New York society.

PS: My favorite novellas were The Old Maid (the 50s) and and New Years Day (the 70s): two novellas with a common theme. They were both about complicated women (who “good” society had ignored, judged or cast aside) willing to make enormous sacrifices to ensure that their loved ones were safe, happy and cherished.

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erimakii

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

3.5 STARS

"Set in the New York of the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, the four short novels in this collection each reveal the tribal codes and customs that ruled society, portrayed with the keen style that is uniquely Edith Wharton's. Originally published in 1924 and long out of print, these tales are vintage Wharton, dealing boldly with such themes as infidelity, illegitimacy, jealousy, the class system, and the condition of women in society Included in this remarkable quartet are False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, and New Year's Day." (From Amazon)

I only read one novella - OLD MAID - and it was a great piece of Old New York that only Wharton can write. This story is the basis for the Bette Davis and Marion Hopkins film by the same name.

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hypertreb

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I always love Wharton's view of New York society and False Dawn is a wonderful novella about the wealthy families of the mid-19th century New York and their relationship with money (old and new) and art - acquiring it, appreciating it, and using it to demonstrate their standing in society. Does Edith Wharton really need my review? She's brilliant. Read her.

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Kelly97

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

The four short novels by the author of The Age of Innocence are set in the New York of the 1840's, 1850's, 1860's and 1870's.

The first, False Dawn, describes a father-son relationship that falls apart. Paintings are involved.

The second, The Old Maid, and her best known, involves a woman's illegitimate child adopted by her best friend with devastating results.

The third, The Spark, deals with a man's moral rehabilitation.

And the fourth, New Year's Day (and my favorite), is an O.Henryesque tale of a married woman suspected of adultery.

I have read Age of Innocence and this book caries on in the tradition of describing eras and the rules and customs that describe society. I have a copy of this book bought in San Jose CA when I visited my friend there. I treasure the book, the trip and my friend.

5 stars

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QueenRagdoll

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I don't think I have ever read anything written by Edith Wharton. Well, I loved this book and am not usually a fan of short stories. But these are "shaped more as character studies" and felt like a peek through a window to the past wealthy New York lives. Four stories starting with
False Dawn (set in the 1840s), with a coming-of-age boy from a wealthy family sent on a Europe tour (common for boys of his situation then) who will bring back paintings for his dad's "planned" Art gallery. Alas, the boy will not follow his paternal's recommendations, will bring back a bunch of vulgar paintings from painters never heard of, and will be finishing his life in poverty.
The Old Maid (set in the 1850s) is heartbreaking and also full of compassion story (maybe too much compassion? No, you are never too compassionate!) and the realization of one who spent (literally) her life without much love/excitement or purpose but still had a good honest heart able to give/take and realize that give was best.
The Spark (set in the 1860s) is the shortest story about an older gentleman, much older than his look, married to a younger "volage" woman. It's from the point of view of a young man who has always been intrigued by this older gentleman and who will become a friend and a confidant.
New Year's Day (set in the 1870s) is maybe my favorite of the 4th because of its sadness and the fact that the main character, a woman, will somehow "prevail." Lizzy Hazeldean is a young lady married to a man whose health is failing, and she has a lover. Multiple people from her "circle" (Upper-Class New York) will see her escape the 5th Avenue Hotel's fire with her lover (they happened to be at a get-together in an apartment overlooking the hotel and were "enjoying" the firefighters and people escapes "show" when they recognized them both). She will be shunned by some, her husband will die, and she will leave the country. Fast forward a few years, she's a young widow back in New York, and her former lover comes to marry her as a "grand gesture" to erase the stain of their past…but wait: Lizzie does not, has never loved him and tells him that their relation was her only mean to have enough money for her husband to be taken care of and not worried of her and their finances. She has now inherited from an older aunt, does not want to marry, and does not care to evolve in that upper circle anymore.
I enjoyed these beautifully written stories and will have this author in mind when I run out of books.

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Refrain2294

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

On reading Wharton again I was just amazed at what a flawless writer she is. Her descriptions and dialogue flow like water, and her numerous narratives are inevitably seamlessly woven together. She also again demonstrates her inimitable ability to divine social meaning in mundane actions and objects.

Wharton's hypersensivity to social cues obviously comes from growing up in the rarefied world of the Old New York aristocracy, which she again gently pillories in these four stories. She comes at them like an anthropologist (even using the language of "totems" and "fetishes") and conveys both the absurdity of their world and also the abstruse skills necessary to thrive in it. Overall, it's a fascinating picture of a vanished world and of the characters that populated it.

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